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POEMS. 



POEMS 



LETTERS TO DON BROWN 



GAY HUMBOLDT, 

1 



BURR LINGTON, D. L. L. 






ALBANY: 

E. H. BENDER, PUBLISHER. 

M DCCC LVII, 
1 






Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1857, 

BY GAY HUMBOLDT, 

in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the Northern District of N. Y. 



Baker Taylor, Printer, Albany. 



PREFACE. 



I INTENDED to publish the following Juveniles as if they 
had come into the world without a friend or introduction, but 
perhaps a book of this sort, showing so much both of haste 
and neglect, needs a word of apology or explanation — there- 
fore it shall have it. 

And first, if any one wants to know why these nondescript 
compositions ever had an existence, he will have to ask some 
one else, for frankly, I cannot tell. I have never uegle.cted 
any duty that thereby I might gain time for the collection 
and arrangement of these waifs — but who can labor inces- 
santly ? Every mortal after weary days of toil must have 
evenings of rest, and recreation. 

A few of these random lucubrations (hoten Poems), have 
been hastily collected and submitted to the printers— and 
since I was pre-engaged (as usual) with matters more tangi- 



VI PREFACE. 

ble and utilitarian, they (i. e., tlie devils,) had it all tlieir own 
way, and the consequence is that a part of the typography is 
like the copy, and the rest perfectly new, even to me. Snobs 
says I ought not to complain as there is plainly a most deci- 
ded reformation made in drear by dropping the r so that it 
shall henceforth and forever read dear ! Dear Snobs, and the 
dear Printers! 

Lest some acute critics should consider Franco the most am- 
bitious of April Leaves (because the longest), I will say that 
it is not, but on the contrary is one of the youngest of them 
all, having been written in 1851. 

To the Hon. George P. Maksh, of Burlington, Vernnont, I 
would tender my most grateful thanks that he so kindly per- 
mitted a humble student the use of his name by way of dedi- 
cation, yet after all I am afraid the appropriation of this would 
seem like assuming too much for a youthful production like my 
book, and hence whether it is " damned to" oblivion or " ever- 
lasting fame" I will inscribe it generally to my fellow students, 
being the Law Class for Autumn, 1857, U. of A. — and espe- 
cially to my fiiend Prof. Thos. C. Folger. 

Albany, N. Y., Nov. 17, 1857. 



CONTENTS. 



APRIL LEAVES. 

CUT FROM A POET'S PREFACE 

VINDICATION 

VINDICATION. PART SECOND 

EVA .... 

ADIEU THE BYGONE YEAR . 

SONNET . e . . 

THE LADY IRENE 

LOST IN THE WOODS 

OCONAY'S SPEECH TO DON BROWN . 

THE WOODS 

THE SNOW-FLOWER . 

DESTINY .... 

WE . 

TO ONE WHO SCORNED ME DREAMER 

BLANCHE GENEVIEVE TO DON BROWN 



PAGE 

1 

3 

5 

9 

10 

11 

12 

16 

18 

22 

24 

25 

27 

•28 

31 



Till CONTENTS. 








PAGK 


IF I LOVE THEE WILT 


THOU LOVE ME? . 


37 


WAKENING . 


. 


39 


THE BIRGE HOUSE 


. 


40 


HAUNTED ! . 


. 


42 


SAN MONTO 


. 


45 


TO THE AUTHOR OF " 


SHADELAND " 


49 


TO MADAME 


. 


52 


A PHANTASY 


. 


54 


A HERO . 


. 


56 


ASPIRATION . 


. 


58 


FOR AN ALBUM . 


. 


60 


FRANCO 


. 


61 


SONNET . 


. 


69 


SONNET 


. 


70 


H. P. M. 


. 


71 


MENDEE'S DAUGHTER 


. 


73 


BOYHOOD 


. 


78 


A DAY 


. 


79 


EFFIE ANGELL . 


. 


83 


CHATHAM . 


. 


85 


JENNIE MAYNE . 


• • • 


89 



NIGHTS FOR DAYS. 



INTRODUCTION 
FAERIE'S QUESTION 
I'LL REMEMBER 



93 
97 
99 





CONTENTS. 




ix 

PAGE 


STENA KILL 


• 




100 


ADEL 


, , 




102 


" AT ten" 


• • > 




104 


LOST 


. 




108 


THE angels' FLOWEBS , 




109 


AT REST 


. 




110 


burnsted 


• . • 




112 


TO JAYNE 


. 




114 


GOOD-NIGHT 


. 




116 


ELLA, OF THEE 


, 




117 


AWAY 


... 




119 


NOVEMBER , 


« 




123 


UNDERBILL 


. • • 




125 


ALONE 


'• -• 




127 



LETTERS TO DON BROWN. 



KINDERHOOKING 

CHATHAM AS HOME 

A DIARY 

AMONG THE BURGHERS 

BURNSTED AGAIN 

MANSFIELD AND MEN 

UNDERHILL LAKE 

OLD-TIME CLIMBINGS 

MOUNTAINEERING 

A WHITE MOUNTAIN SHOWER 



137 
145 
153 
163 
166 
170 
182 
187 
394 
201 



X CQNTENTS. 

FAO£ 

OCTOBER AT BURLINGTON . . . 208 

DECEMBER AT UNDERBILL . . 214 

HOME , . , . , 220 

GLORIFICATION .... 228 

BOAT-RACING .... 234 

MINERALS AND ANGELS . . . 239 

WATER-MELONS AND BURNS . . . 246 



APRIL LEAVES. 



APRIL LEAVES. 



CUT FROM A POET'S PREFACE. 



In vain earth smiles her sweetest way; 

I am a hardened wretch, they say, 

Who scorneth love though heaven should pray. 

Who scorneth love, who scorneth hate, 
And fain would wreck the direst fate 
That bars his pathway to the Great. 

Who owns Ambition is his life, 
And mingles in the fiercest strife. 
Chanting wild words with wrecking rife. 

II. 

Another song, another day, 

Another passion- winged lay 

Aspiring for eternity. 
1 



CUT FROM A POET S PREFACE. 

Another poet on the shore 

Of that lone sea, that evermore 

Chants dirges for hopes gone before 

To their lone grave. Another soul 
Which spurns like lightning, all control. 
And only pushes for the goal, 



And vows that all the storms that rise, 
Between the frowning earth and skies, 
Shall never turn him from his prize. 



VINDICATION. 



m 

They laugh and scorn me dreamer (and forsooth 

Perhaps they ought.) They say my life is vain: 
That glowing visions of aspiring Youth 

Shall end in disappointment, wo and pain: 
That Hope which burns so bright shall die again: 

And wretched Sorrow grope his weary way 
In blinder darkness; it may be so, and fain 

Would I take heed of all my friends can say 

But something deeper than my life impels my life 
away — 



Away from formal rules which Wisdom makes. 

Away from seeming humble destiny, 
Away from school-boy plays among the brakes, 

Ar.d transient joys that wake in miseiy, 
Away from torturing facts to heaven of poesy. 

And who shall swear my thoughts are doomed 
to shame. 
That all youth's buoyant hopes are mockery ? 

I have cared much but care not now, for Fame 
Is nothing in itself, but with the world is flame 



4 VINDICATION. 

Which burns for good or ill while empires, made 

Through the long toil ol ages, ruins be, 
Which tells for right or wrong till time shall fade 

Into the ether of eternity ! 
And, Power of Good, I will to work for thee! 

I rather shrink beneath the doom of fate 
Than give one smile to Wrong or Tyramiy. 

So be my high ambition, or soon, or late 
Jo}^ sets in gloom if Good can call me Great. 



VINDICATION. 



BEING PART SECOND. 



I. 

And "what are you?" they ask. And, " but a 
child, 
A weakling wanderer in a land unknown, 
An untaught rambler in a world o'erpiled 
With god-like labors of the ages grown ; 
A gaping school-boy on the Alps alone 
With heaven and earth of mysteries around, 
A thoughtless prattler, where all bards have 
thrown 
Their life-time toils with genius powers en- 
crowned," 
A wise one answers quick, with many a scowl 
profound. 

II. 

My answer this. I hope, and pray to hope. 
And will thus hope with this same certainty, 

Though dazzle-darked and labor-worn I grope 
In disappointment's night through all to be I 



6 VINDICATION. 

I know our world is old and wise ; but He 
Who smiled on create worlds as morn-stars sung, 

And welcomed them to heaven's fraternity, 
While they should circle heavenly bowers among— 
He as erst was, and ever shall, in primal power is 
young. ^ 

III. • 
Also in goodness, and He has ordained 

Time should be Change; Progress, Divinity; 
Mind, Thought ; Life, Action. Else He might 
have chained 
The bright blue wooing air and answering sea, 
The deep-voiced rivers singing ceaselessly, 
The flitting warblers and the blissful light, 

And earth itself through eld eternity 
Were bound, and the sun's fire — for what were 

might 
Of that brave god if all were rest and night ! 

IV. 
But all is not. And nature's handiwork 

Is not from models. Bolder is her plan. 
She apes nor Past nor Present's lying smirk^^ 
Her thought works ages in a single span. 
And each fair world's a thought that ever ran 
Through mazy space, and each fair tree and 
flower, 
And noble word sublimed from God-sunned man, 



VINDICATION. 7 

And each fair dream that flits through fancy's 

bower, 
And all that thrills the boundless universe with 

power. 

V. 

Yet each must labor for itself and all, 

And each himself mark out the path he'll run, 

And say himself if he will rise or fall. 

Much is to do, for though much has been done, 
The tireless Right has many a battle won, 

And firm her turrets stand but far apart; 

And he who would be fit accounted one 

Of her bold chiefs, as thou, Whittier, art, 

Must emulate the skies, yet toil with sacrijicing 
heart. 

VI. 
Of which no more for me. Life oft is sad 
From very loneliness ; and bitter tears 
Will course flushed cheeks, and longings vainly 
mad 
Throb high my brow; yet hope looms o'er the 

years, 
O'er all the doubting sighs and darkening fears 
That bar the backward scene — o'er all the frowns 

Of toppling scholiast fools and passing jeers 
Of kindly friends. Ay, her pure glory drowns 
All pomp of rank and wealth and famed Power's 
worshipped crowns. 



8 VINDICATION. 

VII. 

Hence, weary-worn, yet young in years, I roam 
This ordeal world with strivings and desires 

I fain would wish not vain. Dear friends, I come, 
Not tranced, hung on joy's delusive wires. 
Nor lulled to rest with dulcet-drowsy lyres 

That charm with thoughtless lave and proud con- 
tent, 
But borne along by the all-deepening fires 

Of youthful aspiration; and though blent 

With tempest-crags, my path is with heaven's hop- 
ing stars o'ersprent. 



.SONNET. 



CHRISTIA.N1TY AND SLAVERY. 



Earth's labor widens, — look where oceans roll 
Far westward till they break on Asia's shore, 
And millions listen to its hollow roar, 

As Time sweeps onward to its final goal; 

Unnumbered millions who, forever more, 

Have groped their weary way in darkest night 
Of ignorance and sin, and bowed the knee 
To idol forms of earth. Oh mockery! 

They should first know their pathway leads to 
blight, 
And racking torment for eternity, 

And then the loveliness of " Christian light " 

To charm life's path till earth a heaven shall 

be, 
Encheered with angel love and minstrelsy. 
And peaceful righteousness of Slavery! 



ADIEU THE BY-GONE YEAR. 



Whether time sported with the blithesome hours 

That kiss the frosty brow of April's morn, 
Or sultry zephyrs from far southern bowers, 
That charm the snow wreaths into bursting flowers, 
Or laughed amid the showers 

Of wanton spring till summer's glorious dawn; 
Then worshipped her till eve's o'erheavenly gloam- 
ing, 

(As if the sorrowing angel forms of light 
Had lingered in the paling sky from roaming, 

To bid the hushing world of men good night) 
Or day brought toil or tempests' madly foaming, 

The wished for change, I mused alone the while. 
Until the gold- wrought hues of Autumn's gleaming 
Had turned to dewy shades, and shades to dream- 
ing 

Of winter's blighting breath, and brown and sere 
The cold earth heard but the mad frost- winds 
screaming, 

Among-t the spruce boughs on her mountains 
drear, 
Or passed in joy or tears, Adieu the by-gone year. 



EVA. 



Fair October dieth ever 

On cold Autumn's heartless breast, 
And our flow'rets always shiver 

As break storms howl from the West, 
And the river 

Sighing veils her leaf-strewn breast. 



And the winds sweep down the willows 
As the nights bear down the days, 

And engulfed amid the billows 
Are all June's coquettish rays. 

But the willows 

Never sighed to such lone lays 



As this evening by the Burnside, 
For this evening sad and lone, 

Every gust that shakes the casement 
Whispers in a mournful tone, 

That the angel 
Fair Evangeline is gone ! 



THE LADY IRENE. 



IN THE MANNER OF THE OLD MINSTRELS. 



I. 

'TwAS in joyance wild that the Lady Irene 
Went forth in this gladsome world, I ween. 
For never so glorious a morning was seen 

Since day first broke from night's thrall. 
And she skipped right and left where springs new 

bowers 
Where laughing in sunshine and festooned with 

flowers, 
So she laughed with the sunshine and merry young 

hours, 
The gladdest of them all. 

11. 

*' So on, so fair,'*^ while day smiled nigh, 
But soon he was lost in the western sky, 
Then despite her wild joy, a tear filled the eye 

Of the laughing girl Irene. 
'Twere hard to tell why that tear were there. 
Could her radiant brow be darkened care? 
If you questioned those lips of the lady fair 

They answered not, I ween. 



THE LADY IRENE. 13 

III. 

'Twas the half-lighted hour when bats are at play, 
And birds with dark wings are flitting away 
To their eyrie homes in the beeches gray, 

To their nests in the forests deep. — 
When of love the cuckoo broods and sings, 
When swallows hover on dreamy wings, 
And night whispers sweet to all living things — 

why should the Lady weep? 

IV. 
A longing mood of the spirit-mind, 
A wishing unwilled and undefined, 
A shadowy sadness undefined, 

Shall it fly with to-morrow's dew! 
She shall wake on the morrow's first gray dawn 
And laugh o'er her sorrow like darkness gone, 
She shall laugh and weep ere eve has drawn 

Her veil by the heavens blue. 



V. 
For let eyes like hers their brothers meet. 
And their charms shall have brought the world 

at her feet, 
Richly blessed if to catch but one smile so sweet 
Of the radiant maiden Irene. — 
2 



14 THE LADY IRENE. 

And they came from the East and sun-couched 

West, 
From the torrid isles, and the gleaming crest 
Of the ice-templed Alps, where storms never rest 
While the years whirl on, I ween, — 



VI. 

And so there sped from Lombardy 

practical man; for his wise blinked eye 

Scanned the useful broad lands around her lie, 

And the nibbled pastures green — 
And he scorned love, as a God would pride. 
But his " lands were broad and rich beside," 
And *' if wise (as pretty) she would be his bride" — 

She spurned the Slave, I ween! 



VII. 

And Crcesus came with his bags of gold, 
And his kingly proud titles all unrolled, 
And whispered her locks were sheeny like gold, 

Her eyes like pearls of the deep; 
And if the Lady would be his bride, 
She should reign by golden Pactolus' tide, 
And gold should biing the proud world to her 
side, — 

The Lady turned to weep! 



THE LADY IRENE. 15 

viir. 
Bmt a Forest Boy hied from Switzerland, 
With nobleness stamped on his features, as bland 
As the heaven-crowned mounts of his native land 

When sparkling in morning sheen ; 
And he came with the glow of the sun on the w^old, 
His soul willing fountains of love untold, 
And whispered of love more than earth can unfold, 

She turned not away, I ween. 



LOST IN THE WOODS. 



The blooming month of July 

With flowers made glad the earth, 
When a merry lot of schoolboys 

Came shouting, dancing forth. 
And, " Come on, boys, 0, come on, boys," 

Was the burden of their lay, 
** Come on, boys, 0, come on, boys. 

Shout on, boys, while ye may!'' 

They danced across the meadows. 

By the brooklet's crystal sheen, 
They danced beneath the forest. 

Where the fairies sleep, I ween — 
And, " Come on, boys, 0, come on, boys,'' 

Was the burden of their lay, 
*' Come on, boys, 0, come on, boys. 

Shout on, boys, while ye may!" 



LOST IN THE WOODS, 17 

Woodman of that furthest forest, 

Where the foot of man hath been, 
Stopped a moment his lone ax strokes 

To list the merry din — 
•' Come on, boys, O, come on, boys/' 

Was their last glad, wild refrain, 
For they passed beneath the shadows^ 

And were never seen again !, 



OCONAY'S SPEECH TO DON BROWN. 



TKOM AN UNPITBLISHED POEM. 



I. 

*'DoN Brown, turn back! A cavern deep as hell 
Yawns but two steps before you. Turn, Don, 
turn!'' 
A voice of thunder spoke, which he knew well, 
Upon his right; then, with a warning yell, 

A mammoth stone the beetling crags did spurn. 
It smashed, and echoed down, and down, and 

down, 
Till seven swarthy forms had reached the crown 

II. 

Of the bare rocks around; when, dying deep 

Into the distance of its breathless fall, 
It splashed deep waters. Like some god of sleep 
He stood entranced upon the yawning steep ; 

While one swart form advanced before them all. 
And with commanding gesture, as if to 
Compel the world to note what he would do— 



oconay's speech to don brown. 19 

III. 

*' Don Brown," he said, " you killed our Brave, — 
that's plain! 
The brothers of the dead call for revenge, 
And swear the sun should not wake heaven again 
Ere they have mixed with dust the slayer, slain. 

The sun must rest, but hate will never change — 
Will never ebb on this side of that river 
Which brave souls stem, which whirls weak hearts 
forever, 

IV. 

*'Don Brown, great years have died since Lorain 
came 
Amongst us, and we bowed into the dust. 
We thought him nobly great and good, (for 

shame!) 
We gave him of our richest lands and game; 

He took the whole and vowed his deed was just. 
We urged him. Then he fairly vowed to pay. 
If we would wait until the seventh day. 

V. 

'* And so we waited. Our wives and children here 
Were sheltered in the Mansfield Mountain Cave ; 
We fished the streams and rambled after deer, 
Or slept and little dreamed the lynx was near — 
We little dreamed Lorain had planned our grave. 



20 OCONAY'S SPEECH TO DON BROWN. 

He'd promised, we believed— and built our light 
Upon the river bank the seventh night, 

VI. 
*'To guide us to our mutual place of meeting, 
To warn us safe from dread Winooski Falls. 
The night was come, and Lorain's drum was beat- 
ing; 
One boat upon the waves was fast retreating, 
When a young pale face through the darkness, 
calls — 
' Beware the light!' By this we came to think 
Lorain had moved it to the cataract's brink. 

VII. 
''■ Don Brown^ who warned us from that Lorain's, 
hell, 
Yet warned too late to save my only brother, 
I swore that when the Great Spirit should tell 
I would avenge my murdered kinsman well. 

Moons followed long — long mourned for one ai> 
other. 
The panther had grown big upon his prey — 
This night has swept the monster-fiend away. 

VIII. 
'' Don Brown, we know you. We have known you 
many, 
We've watched you many sorrow-burdened years. 



oconay's spkech to don brown. 21 

Don, we have not forgotten you, nor can we. 
You shall not die — you shall not want while any 

Of all the mighty Iroquois appears. 
Your destiny is wild, and Oconay 
May often help to brave some rugged way. 

IX. 

*'Don Brown, adieu! The red man's talk should 
cease. 
You left the panther's whelp within the brake — 
Yet she is fair, may the Great Spirit please! 
We've saved your life — be that our sign of peace 
And ask no questions for your life, love's sake. 
Remember Oconay! Our brothers through 
The black woods guide you home. Once more 
adieu!" 



THE WOODS. 



FEOM THE GERMAN OF HUMBOLDT. 



I WAS born in the woods, 
In the wildest dell of the Solitudes — 
Where the Dryads hang their darkest woofs 
From the pine trees' many-tasseled roofs. 

In a dim arcade 
Of oaken boughs, with moss-plumes inlaid, 
Was my cradle swung; and I laughed till the stars 
Grew dizzy above night's drowsy bars. 

I was taught by the woods, 
Where panthers loud scream over cavern-born 

floods, 
Where mad torrents shouting 'neath rainbows fly. 
And mountain crags climb the daring sky. 

I love the wild moods 
Of the waving, towering, whispering woods, 
When they wave to the breeze, or tower to ihe sun. 
Or whisper to storms, as their wrath is done. 



THE WOODS. 23 

And the hushing moods, 
When soft winds speak low, and the tempest 

broods 
In the aspen-trees, and the night-clouds weep 
O'er a world weighed down by the shadows of 

sleep. 

And when earth-joys are o'er, 
And the death-angel wings from his nightly shore 
May I be where loved tree-boughs in rapt twilight 

lie, 
And spirit-leaves woo the holy sky! 



THE SNOW- FLOWER, 



FROM THE GERMAN. 



'Tis beautiful— the sleeping flower 

Amid the snows; 
More beautiful than summer's dower 

Can e'er disclose. 

Fit emblem of the soul divine 

In earthly guise ; 
Heaven beaming in a smile of thine 

From those dark eyeSy 

Bespeaking inspiration high. 

High love to thee, 
Outgushing far as time can fly 

Eternity! 

And yet while life shall trill her lay 

Of sadness o'er, 
While my heart beats its frosty way, 

We meet no more ! 



DESTINY. 



We parted as the sky 
By its watchers on high 
Told that night's highest noon 
Would be gone past soon — 

And forever. 
Oh, the stars spangled fair 
In the clear frosty air ; 
But the whispering breeze 
Through the sere, sighing trees 

Spoke "forever.'' 



And ever, evermore 

Are the zephyrs sighing o'er 

The thoughts of that night, — 

But such dreamy, witching light 

Shines down never. 

And the mountain towering bold 

On a sky of spangled gold, 

Looks so chilled with blight and drear, 

Or friendship's smile so dear 

Never, never. 

3 



26 DESTINY. 

We met — this youthful band, 
In an unknown mountain land, 
And our friendship, unmoved ever, 
Flowed along like life's calm river 

Ever, ever, 
Till we parted— and this band 
Shall be known through every land, 
By their minstrel music heard; 
And their thoughts, deep, genius-stirred, 

Live forever! 



WE. 



I. 

We met. Spring loved her sylvan bovvers, 
And gave eacli tree a wreath of flowers. 

We met. Birds carrolled everywhere, 
And earth was glad as heaven were there. 

The soul forgot its lowly dust — 
We loved, as kindred spirits must. 

Our hearts kept beat to heaven's own rhyme- 
Time fled, for we knew not of time ! 

II. 

We parted, — for her hand was sold 

To Mammon's slave — her heart for gold. 

We parted; and Time crossed the way, 
And clouds clung round each struggling day. 

Love crushed to earth, yet still be just; 
We parted; kindred spirits must, 

But they shall meet one day above. 
Where Gold is not the price of Love ! 



INSCRIBED TO ONE WHO SCORNED ME DREAMER. 



Push on your bold schemes, 
Ambition, Wealth, Power! 

The idlest of dreams 
May live — for an hour. 

Dream you scathe, like the levin. 
The broad land and sea, 

Yet I'd dream the sweet Heaven 
Is bending to me ! 

Go, mock at all beauty 

God's love can unfold; 
Go, do your high " duty," 

Coin your base heart for gold. 

And then boast your brave skill. 
Boast you're throned " up above , 

Yet— I will what I will, 
And LOVE what I love ! 



TO ONE WHO SCORNED ME DREAMER, 29 

Your pomp is but glimmer, 

The light of swift streams — 
I own myself dreamer. 

What is life but dreams'^ 

Own I'd sometimes outfly 

The cold Care, which flings 
Deadening apathy 

O'er the souls aspirings. 

I would charm my lyre. 

With the twilight which plays 
O'er the fading fire 

Of our summer days. 

I would catch the first smile 

Of the cloudlet's morn, 
Then watch them awhile 

On the swift breezes borne. 

I would paint the bright beams 

Of Day's rainbows of light, 
And muse midst the dreams 

And shadows of Night. 

Would call the charmed hours, 

That come up from the past 
So many fair flowers 

That Time might not blast. 



30 TO ONE WHO SCORNED ME DREAMER. 

Would name tintings and glowings 
'Mid the storm's growing strife, 

But Heaven's o'erflowings 
To cheer weary life. 

And so gladden Duty 

By frail sunbeams and flowers— 
By each dream-thought of beauty 

That flits through Night's bowers ! 



BLANCHE GENEVIEVE TO DON BROWN. 



A STRAY LETrEB, 



I. 

My dearest Don : again another letter. 

You'll pardon: really now I could not help it. 
If inclinations prompt to write what better 
Can your Genevieve do ? Then first your debtor 

Would tender thanks for that dear note so well 
writ, 
Which found its way to me o'er wave and down, 
From mon cher whilom friend of Chatham town. 

II. 
And strange it is that so much thought could rest 

Within the folds of that one little sheet. 
Strange that acquaintance, of so passing quest, 
Could indite thoughts of such deep interest 

To her. But it is even thus — thus tintings fleet, 
The passing thoughts of one of Nature's sages 
May outlive all the gloried art of ages ! 



32 BLANCHE GENEVIEVE TO DON BROWN. 



III. 

And may I not oft hope for thoughts like these 
During my sojourn in this foreign land? 

Is friendship bounded by the circling seas? 

And he who's won such friends, acquaintances, 
Such confidence of all on every hand, 

Cannot forget what he professed to be — 

! must he not oft think to write to me ? 



IV. 

Though uncongenial as we are in soul, 

I can admire, if not appreciate 
Your genius flights, so high beyond control. 
Methinks in your " Bold Dreamer and his Goal'* 

Are the proud elements, heroic, great. 
Of a high character whom future story 
Shall honor not for his, but for the world's own 
glory. 



He bears a fancied resemblance to one 

Of my friends, too — knows no such word as 
fail, 
But struggles ever on through shade or sun, 
And will, till thought's all-boundless power is won! 
I pray success. May naught but laurels veil 



BLANCHE GENEVIEVE TO DON BROWN. 33 

That noble brow, and richest " prepones »' 

Of pleasure crown his westering life with peace. 

VI. 

I could not help but muse awhile and dream 

When I had read your note; and wrote these 
lines 
Within my journal. That lone placid stream 
That trickles silent down as morn's first beam, 

Will not be always traced by thus light signs — 
No ! when the dashing rain comes on the earth, 
The gently murmuring rill shall herald forth 

VII 

A mighty torrent, — heeding not the slight 

And vain obstructions, which perhaps impede 
Less vigorous streams, it rushes like a sprite. 
And spurns the very lightning in its flight ! 

Thus weakly first the grandest minds succeed, — 
Thus aye with master spirit's dawning hour, 
But when he wakes worlds tremble at his power ! 

VIII. 

-m 

And so I thought of Don. Wondered when thou 
By thine unaided efforts hast become 



34 BLANCHE GENEVIEVE TO DON BROWN. 

Truly both Wise and Great, wilt deign bestow 

One casual remembrance on her, who 
Has watched with glowing interest thy soul il- 
lume 

A glorious career — grand destiny? 

yes! I know thou wilt, for good thou canst but 
be ! 

IX. 
And, as we glide in our frail barges down 

The rapid stream of Time, though adverse tides 
And tempest-storms may frightful round us frown, 
And rend us far apart like wild waifs strown — 
Still, with the pleasure which but heaven pro- 
vides, 
Shall be remembered days of " auld lang syne,'' 
And those dark eyes that used to look in mine. 

X. 

Memories of days long gone (how glad, how dear!) 
When I resided 'neath your father's roof. 

We were not acquainted then, since then I hear 

You have been still more bold in your career — 
While I've been lost in fancy's mazy woof — 

The vain allurements of a vain heau mon-^e. 

0, for thy eagle thoughts up-soaring clear and 
grand ! 



BLANCHE GENEVIEVE TO DON BROWN. 35 

XI. 
Dwells there some wonderfully potent spell 
In " waves which a few fleeting nights before 
Nestled beneath the Berkshire Mountain's floor,'' 
Which renders boat-rides on the Stena Kill 
Doubly dear and delightful? If so — well. 
I, too, have had some famous rides upon 
The waves, but for congenial spirits, no, not one. 

xir. 

Of which enough. You sure will not despise — 

You do not think me fickle as some trust? 
At times I am wild, foolish fancies rise, 
But 'neath this hollow seeming mirth there lies 

A heart not quite devoid of generous 
Emotions. Do you know — well, I must close 
And wait, dear D., till the good post shall choose 

XIII. 
To bring an answer back. You will not deign 

To waste your study hours — even for me ! 
I know you task yourself laboriously 
Through these long summer days. "Excelsiors" 

reign 
As proud as ever, do they not? And not in vain» 
But now the midnight shades are in the sky, 
And still reluctant to that word good-bye. 



36 BLANCHE GENEVIEVE TO DON BROWN. 

XIV. 
My pen faint lingers. But alack that so 

You must be wearied. Wilt write soon again ? 

Let it be all about yourself, you know 

That will be " interesting,"— " that will do," 

And so shall truth and friendship never wane;- 

Heroic to the end, if you'll believe 

Affectionate your " Cousin,'' Genevieve! 



IF I LOVE THEE WILT THOU LOVE ME? 



Little child upon the meadows, 

Poet-child at play, 
While all Nature laughs around him, 

Talks the hours away. 

'* Smiling daisy of the meadows, 

Buttercup of May, 
If I love thee, wilt thou love me ?" 

Daisy smiled away. 

** Waving willow of the meadows, 

With thy tresses gay, 
If I love thee, wilt thou love me?'' 

Willow waved away. 

'• Soaring bird above the meadows. 

Trancing earth to-day, 
If I love thee, wilt thou love me?" 

Warbler soared away. 
4 



38 IF I LOVE THEE WILT THOU LOVE ME? 



*' Wimpling brooklet by the meadows. 

Answer me I pray, 
If I love thee, wilt thou love me?" 

Brooklet turned away. 



Little child upon the meadows, 

Poet-child at play, 
Sighing for something to love him 

Wept the hours away. 



July 24, 1854. 



WAKENING. 



Earth's sleeping shadows 

Blush 'neath the flow 
Of the soft-gushing twilight, 

As it waves to and fro — 
Morn breaks o'er the wildness 

Of mountain and flood, 
The dark vista widens 

To infinitude; 
But the soft-falling star-beams, 

That smiled from the night, 
Are lost in the brightness 

Of day's glorious light. 
So my visions of beauty 

Have faded away 
'Neath the widening vista 

Of life's burning day! 



THE BIRGE HOUSE. 



UNDERHILL, VERMONT. 



It is night and I am sitting 

In a HaH of old renown, 
In the crag-embattled turret 

Of a rough old mountain town, 
Looking out upon the forests 

As the drowsy moon goes down, 
And the world grows hushed and awe-struck 

'Neath the shadows' ghastly frown. 

And we still are left to musing 

(Gloomy night and I alone), 
While rapt trees forget to whisper, 

Dreaming to the zephyr's tone. 
Rustling birds flit by before me 

Chanting dirges weird and lone, 
Black clouds are floating o'er me, 

The stars are mystics grown, 



THE BIRGE HOUSE. 41 

And they twinkle down so wildly, 

Then so dreamily I see, 
They are telling how life's best joys 

Hasten to eternity; 
They are speaking of loved schoolmates 

How I loved them (and do thee!) 
They are laughing at the folly 

Of high hopes in one like me; 

They are laughing, they are weeping, 

They are smiling through their tears,— 
They are scanning now the pledges, 

Summer vows of other years. 
They are braving now the darkness 

Till the orient morn appears. 
And the sun, in glory brightness. 

On his lightning path careers! 



HAUNTEDt 



I. 

A PALACE towers up in the darkness. 

Springfield, embosomed in forests, 

Like the long-thought-of bowers of childhood, 

Sleeps far along by the river. 

Beneath shadowy viewless curtains 

It is melancholy midnight. — 

Yet footfalls are heard in the Palace, 

Though no mortal has trod there for ages ! 

And a weird fight certainly rages, 

And a voice shrieks out the name " Alice!" 

ir. 

Many dead leaves on our city, 
Many years have blanched this proud temple. 
Since it welcomed a bride to its bosom. 
She was rich in the beauty of England, 
The rose and the lily commingled; 
And she worshiped her lord as if master 
Of heaven, as well as a Palace, 
That glowed in the twilight even 



HAUNTED ! 43 

Like a saintly soul's first dream of hearen: — 
0, well Haco loved his fair Alice. 



III. 

The stars had gone dreaming o'er Agwam, 

The moon looked over the river, 

And the breezes grown sick of their sighing 

In groves where the angels come never ! 

The night was asleep on the bosom 

Of the mighty and mystical mountains — 

That night Haco first dreamed that Heaven 

Was shut in a Springfield Palace. 

He will ne'er dream again from this even, 

For a fiend has shrieked out the name " Alice!" 



IV. 
0, in vain he calls himself wretched, 
And looks back to the time when a cot stood 
Where now stands his proud-sculptured Palace- 
For he knows how in vain prayed for pity 
His tenant's young wife, sickly Alice, 
Frank Kane's weak and lily like Alice, — 
0, in vain now he prays unto Heaven, 
Bent low in his gold-dazzled Palace, 
He sees but that lone cot this even. 
Chill snows and Frank's pale dying Alice! 



44 HAUNTED ! 

V. 

And in vain for Haco the morning 

Rises up from the Chicopee river, 

And birds wake the groves with such warbling 

As the angels in Heaven love ever. 

No songs may cheer Haco forever, — 

Evermore the earth sickens in mourning — 

All the day and when day dies to even 

Lone he wanders o'er mountains and valleys, 

And thinks not of love or of heaven, 

But a fiend shriek's out the name "Alice !'' 

Sept., 1854. 



SAN MONTO. 



i. 

San Monto the antique Painter, — 

Far mid arching rocks he dwelt. 

Where the great eternal Mountains 

Rise forever till they melt 
In the grandeur-blue of Heaven. 
And he painted, morn and even. 
With all hues of light and gold, 
All the beauties Nature told. 



II. 

San Monto the antique Poet,— 
Far o'er earthly clouds he soared 

With his proud imagination ; 

And he blessed the inspiration 
Of each spirit-whispered word, 

And he blessed the God of Heaven 
For each extatic whisper heard. 



46 SAN MONTO. 

So he studied Nature's beauties. 

Not as rigid schoolmen do 
By the sickening midnight taper, 
But with heart to rapture thriihng — 

Grasping all the world ere knew, — 
With a longing aspiration, 

As of mortal that would woo 
Love of the radtant angels . 

From the holy ether blue — 
Studied, learned the Life of Nature, 
Marked her laws through veiled creation 
From their deepest-thought foundation. 

Loves and darker passions too. 



Free as light, himself, he wondered 

All the world should not be free, 
And he often gravely pondered 

On the right of Tyranny ; 
Mused that life should be but freedom 

To prepare for life to be, 
Till beyond Time's surging river 
He should warble love forever, 

Etching songs for angel choirs, — 
So he wills to dream or ramble 
As the passing scene inspires, 
Scorns the worldling's hollow strife, 



SAN MONTO. 47 

Paints with pen and pencil bold, 
Joys his life of morns and evens 
With all thoughts and rhymes the heavens 

Can unfold — 
Dreams full oft in holy evens 

He is tuning seraph lyres! 



III. 
San Monto, the antique Noble, 

Knew no nobler rank than Toil, 
Never knew that Degradation 
Stamped vile shame on every nation 

That deigned delve the vulgar soil. 
For he lived in the Dark Ages 
Ere the sun of science shone, 
Spangling with its glorious brightness 
Slavery's freedom-worshiped throne, — 
Ere the kindly soul of Justice 
Had been glozed to Sorrow's moan — 
Ere the fashion of the earthly 
Had been guide to heaven alone ! 

So he toiled and sang in gladness, 
Sowed his lands with measure bold, 

Sang, and garnered up in gladness 
Golden measures manifold. 



48 SAN MONTO. 

Toiled till day went down the mountains 

Into regions drear and cold ; 
But what time the deepening fountains 

Glittered in the twilight gold, 
Bright he pictured all rapt visions 

Truth could catch or Art could mould, 
Tranced with highest thoughts and rhythms 

Earth and Heaven can unfold! 

IV. 
San Monto, the antique Artist, 

With all human frailties told, 
Would that hearts as true and noble 

Pulsed our present proud yet cold. 

Rest ignoble, vile, tame sameness 

Rusts our Genius natures out; 
Or glse blighting avaricious 

Passions bar their fires about. 
Would that heaven-born Truth and Justice 

Were not sepulchered in Gold ; 
Would all hearts that think for Freedom 

Dared to speak and act as bold — 
Then the truthful age of glory 

Should unfold! 

Chath/im, Oct. 10, 1853. 



TO THE AUTHOR OF "SHADELAND." 



J. 

0, Effie Afton! would to heaven that I, 
In wandering up and down life's lonely round, 
Might find out Shadeland, if beneath the sky, 
If on this earth its blissful bowers be found ! 
(Thy pictured shades where heaven's own shadows 

lie) 
Where whispering leaves and laughing flowers en- 
thrall, 
And singing birds, and thou the "spirit of tljem 
all,"— 

n. 

Unbiassed nature and her goddess keeper — 

Would I might trace thee hither home as Beau 
did, 
Then all in vain thou played the roguish creeper 
5 



50 TO THE AUTHOR OF " SHADELAND." 

Through all known wilds, though vaster far and 

deeper 
Than e'er a gazelle of the forest threaded. 
Would smile or frown? You said you would be 

glad 
To welcome all the " professed friends '' you had. 



III. 

Yet call not me professed although unknown, 

I have not seen thee, and perchance may never, 
Still nobleness thy artless truth shall own 
More lovely than a Cleopatra's throne! 

I love thee, Effie, and will love forever. 
Wilt not believe ? It is enwrit this even 
Upon the brightest glowing leaves of Heaven ! 



IV. 

'Of course you are not asked to love again. 

You said you would not, and I must believe, — 

Yet please tell puss not sing so sad a strain, 
I am a friend that will not play the " Steve." 
Kisses are angel's words, so by your leave, 

I'll send a few enclosed in my first letter, — 

Let me find Shadeland and I promise better. 



TO THE AUTHOR OP " SHADELAND." 51 
V. 

But to be earnest. For you there is not 

Room to be lonely in this wide world now; 
Each sigh or smile, perhaps by you forgot, 

Has bought a thousand garlands for your brow, 
Ten thousand loves in palace and in cot, — 
And I, however madly wrought for fame, 
Still turn aside to praise thy peerless name! 



TO MADiVME 



Ellen, Spring has come again — 

The same fair Spring that tranced our sky, 
When blushing flowers enwreathed her brow, 

And love-lit smiles danced in her eye. 

Days are growing longer now, — 

The same fair April days, I weet, 
That used to climb old Mansfield's towers 
With radiant eye and crimson feet. 

Birds are singing too, how well! 

High with joy, with love how deep! 
Twilight's lingering heavens still tell 

Nights too glorious for sleep. 

Ellen, you were kind indeed, — 
I know me well that cozy room. 

Where sunbeams ever love to stay. 

And night ne'er brings her sable gloom. 



TO MADAME . 53 

And yet, dear Nell, it may not be, 
I may not meet thee there to-night, 

And though I pray that life for thee 
May be all happiness and light: 

Still, Madame, do not wish me joy. 

And do not bid me " call again;'' 
Thy beauty beams no more for me. 

Thy smiles would pierce my heart in vain. 

And didst thou think I could forget ? 

Thou should'st have known this truth before — 
The heart that's loved as mine has loved^ 

Still loves, and must for evermore! 



A PHANTASY. 



I DREAMED it was night by the sleeping sea, 
And the stars were sinking away to rest; 

And I thought that proud kings were humbled to 
me, 
That proud nations trembled at my behest. 



In a moment a ship arose from the sea, 
'Twas a fairy ship with a cloud of sail, 

And it sped on and onward right gallantly, 
As if borne on the wings of a tempest gale. 



There were echoes of laughter and songs of love 
That came to my ear — high sounds of glee — 

As like a bright cloud of evening she drove 
O'er the curling waves of the wakening sea. 



A PHANTASY. 65 

Onward and on ! and a hurricane swept 

Onward and on o'er the place where I stood. 

Onward and on, till the fairy thing leapt 
Like a wild thing of life from the maddening 
flood! 



Onward and on, like a bird of the sea, 
It toppled the waves of the ether air, 

A moment — then dashed down breathlessly, — 
And vanished like rime in the sun's fierce glare ! 



A HERO. 



It is a beauteous picture 

Of genius power, I ween, 
That of the youthful Barbaroux 

By the Poet Lamartine. 

Of his cottage 'neath the cork trees, 
Where the sunbeams mazy glance 

Through the dreamy, waving foliage ; 
In the sunny South of France. 

Of his daily rustic labors, 
Where the calcined, coral land 

Struggles with the rocks and sun-rays. 
And the waves on either hand. 

Of his mingled science-labors 
With the labors of the day, 

Sounding Marat and M. Saussure, 
And such monarch minds as they. 



A HERO, 57 

Of his lone wild pathos-musings. 

Burning at the noontide sun, 
Yet vague as ocean shadows 

Which the twilight smiles upon. 

Of his longing aspirations, 

Of his waking from home bowers,- — 
Of his eloquence deep moving, 

As by Truth's eternal powers ] 

Oh! those words of deep devotion, 

Wrought through toils and suffering tears! 

They shall echo like the ocean 

O'er the world's unnumbered years.' 



ASPIRATION. 



Fame will sing a Song to-day, 
Tranced with thought of ages gray, 
Which shall live forevermore, 
Sounding on Time's fading shore, 
Till the restless, surging sea 
Echoes back Eternity. 

Deep shall be the Lay, and wide 
As the shoreless ocean-tide — 
Deep as gushing flood of Day 
When it drowns the Galaxy, — 
Deep shall be as angel-love. 
Deep as Heavsn is above, 
Deep as Thought can ever be, 
Sounding through Eternity. 



ASPIRATION. 59 

Wide, I ween, as unknown space 
Where the lawless comets race, — 
Wide shall be as sun-god's path, 
Towering where no mortal hath, 
As the reach of seraph eyes 
Beaming through the nightly skies, — 
Wide as Thought can ever fly, 
Winging through Eternity ! 



FOR AN ALBUM. 



Here we met one summer day, 

(We were younger then than now) 
Sunshine chased the hours away, 
Warblers tuned as sweet a lay, 
Burnside wavelets laughed as gay, 
Flowerets bloomed as rich and gay 
As if Heaven had raptured May, 

Lent her song and wreathed her brow! 

Here we part this winter day, 

(We are older now than then) 
Frosts have crushed the flowers of May^ 
Swept the flowers and birds away, 
We will leave this home to-day, 

You to seek another home, 

I like ocean wave to roam ! 
You will choose the sun's pure light, 
(Friends shall ever cheer your way,) 

I the ligtnings and the night — 
BuRNSTED shall be left again! 



FRANCO. 



Part I. — home, and why left. 



It was summer in a summery land, 

'Twas June where June garlands the year 

With flowers so beautifully grand, 
And skies so deep and clear — 

All nature smiled so glad and free 

'Twas luxury to breathe there, be. 

It was so once — should be so now, 
But Tyranny came o'er the waves ; — 

And though his ship was fair, I trow 
It groaned beneath a freight of slaves ; 

Franc's father was an Afric King, 

But now a senseless, soulless thing. 

His mother had been slave before, 

When first the Spaniards found this land, 

The Bible in their left they bore. 

But clutched the sword in their strong hand,- 

They said nought could withstand the Word, 

And proved it by their reeking sword !j 
6 



62 



FRANCO. 



His brother, friends e'er had been slaves, 
His sisters too, yet they were fair. 

Their eyes like suns in crystal waves, 
And in such witching long dark hair 

The fairies, as the poets tell. 

And loves, too, ever long to dwell. 

And Franc himself, the last of all, 
He too must toil 'neath burning sun, 

For naught but prove himself a thrall, 
Till death proclaims each vile task done. 

Yet he can do it, and thank heaven 

For blessings manifold each even. 

For many blessings — parents dear, 
A cabin midst the low-roofed trees 

Where he can spend his evenings cheer. 
And feel himself at ease, — 

Where all may join to heaven a prayer, 

Then dream themselves already there! 

And Franco was the last of all 

To vainly curse an abject fate, 
Till Jenny, dark eyed Jenny Call 

Was sold beyond the State, — 
His mother too! Men said 'twas right. 
Franc, braving death, prepared for flight! 



FRANCO. 63 

It was sunset in the dewy glade, 

And sunset in the drowsy sky, 
And the vesper bells had died away, 

And the kingly eagle's cry. 
And the shadows of night hung rapt and deep. 
As the world and time were lost in sleep. 

Yet what though the shades with mystic spell 

Bind common souls; with one it is day, 
For ere morning breaks he shall have swept 

His life or his thrall dom away. — 
And this is not all — his priced life shall stand 

Betwixt all he loves and what they would shun. 
For he knows the next morning that dawns o'er 
the land 

May bear them apart far as serfdoms' run. — 
His home-roof is torn — who would not swear 
To baffle the ruffians who girt him there! 

Thus he ponders to-night — Oh how welcome night 
To one who had clung, through the weary day. 

From bough to bough of the swamp-grown trees 
Before the blood hound's bay, — 

Who had clung from the topmost bending boughs 
Like a squirrel, the hunter's prey, — 

To-day the most cowering thing of life, . 

To-night with heart steeled for the direst strife. 



64 FBANCO. 

To-night he walks like a king to his throne, 
For he knows, the wilderness path he treads, 
And the deadly peril and wreck he leads, 

And the guerdon that weighs all down. 

So he hurries along by the river's side, 

By the river that breaks like Niagara's tide. 



And he sees in the midst of broken waves, 
Fenced round with crag-cliflfs grim, 

And towering clouds that the river enshrouds, 
An Island wild and dim, 

And he knows that never did mortal wight 
To that island sail or swim, — 

For the cataract seized each form in a breath. 

And deep were the yawning caverns of death ! 



They have tried till the willing planters say 
That Demons guard that strand, 

And now they would no more make essay 
To reach it than Demon-land, 

Than if twelve dire Demons with gorgon hair 
Should over that torrent stand, 

With threatening swords and flaming breath. 

To guard it by fright, or blight, or death! 



FRANCO. 65 

And Franc has heard all the stories wild 

They tell in darksome eves, 
When children listen with shrinking awe 

Till they tremble like aspen leaves, — . 
But to-night he does not half so much dread 
Witches as waves that no Demon dares tread? 



Part II. — franco's vine bribge. 

But he does not linger. One moment has tied 

A vine to a cypress tree, 
Another has spliced the vine so long 

That 'twill reach where he would be, 
And soon he cleaves the waters, — where 
Is there a Heaven to listen now his prayer? 

He pushes across — adown he is borne 

Like a waif on a tempest sea, 
He is borne hy his goal, and the brink draws near, 

Where the waters fall breathlessly — 
But Hope still clings to the tiny line, 
Like a Christian's faith in words Divine. 

And again he has tried, and thrice has failed, 
But the fourth he has won his goal, — 



66 FRANCO. 

He has reached the wild banks, and offered up 
thanks 
To the Heaven that nerved his soul 
To bide the wrath of the cataract's path, 
Rule the waves as of old proud Pharaoh's slaves 
hath. 



Thanks! he is free. What witchery 

In the heart-felt truth of one little word. 

He is free, and has tied his vine to a tree 
Across and beyond the mad ford — 

A wave-hidden cable no eye may see. 

Yet it leads from the chains of Slavery 



To a glorious Island unmarred by man ; 

Bananas and palms climb the skies. 
And crystal waters in many a fount 

Midst the broken cliffs arise. 
And the driver's lash is never heard 

There more than in Paradise — 
No wonder they loved it. Franc's parents and 

brother, 
Two sisters and one loved more than another ! 



FRANCO. 67 



Pa-KT III. — HOME, AND WHY CHERISHED. 

Long years have passed since first was spanned 

The gulf where a cataract raves, 
But the planters still say that Demons sport 

Over the ominous waves, 
And mocking laughter oft comes through the storm. 

Like the laughter o'er witches' graves, 
And no boat can stand a moment the flood 

That the charmed island laves. 



And oftentimes, the planters say, 
Their cornfields are robbed outright, 

And their slaves are often borne away 
By Demons of darkness and night, — 

But well does Franc know who these Demons are, 

And — ^the Angels of Love that bless his kind care. 

In the home he has made in the bowery dale 
Where a brook wimples down from gold caves, 

On his " Island of Freedom" that smiles 'neath 
the veil 
God has wrought from the wrathful waves ; 

And he says when God rolls the mists away, 

Christian men shall no more worship Slavery ! 



68 FRANCO. 

Yet he loiters not, for the cause of Him 

Is of suffering fellow men, 
And so when the nights wax drowsy and dim 

He hastes o'er the weird flood again, 
And oranges fall from each bending tree, 
As the slave grasps the shores of Liberty. 



And children come with unfeigned glee 
To greet their father home again , 

While bold hearts swear that Tyranny 
Shall never blight this glen — 

And borne by the winds and waves along 

Oft come the notes of this careless song,- 



It is summer in a summery land, 

'Tis June where June garlands the year 

With flowers so beautifully grand, 
And skies so deep and clear — 

All nature sports so glad and free, 

'Tis luxury to breathe there, be I 



SONNET. 



A QUERY. 



They say that the spealjing of Northern men, 
Unbefitting the creeds of South-dwelling thanes, 
Has roused the toiling slave in his chains 
To think on the rights of Freedom again — 
Wherefore they are cursed, and the slaves 

crushed lower, 
Lest free-wakened thoughts should wield the 
power ! 

Thty say that the weaving of ocean streams, 
And sparkling up-gushing of fountains, 
The towering of mist-shrouded mountains 

From earth to the dim land of dreams, 

The rushing of storm-bearing winds through the 

sky 
Has wakened the spirit of Liberty, — 

Why should not God and all Nature be curst? 

For they breathed the spirit of Freedom first! 



SONNET. 



THE BOKNOU BOY. 



Where may his home be? Child of Afric king 
Brought hither to these ever-fragrant bowers, 
Where free wild breezes laugh among the flowers, 

And birds wing music — brought fit offering 

At Freedom's shrine; and so they thralled him 

here, 
That through the sunny days which crown the 
year 

The sons of Liberty might bless his soul 

With holy toil! — for they were Christian men 
Who kindly took him from his native glen 

Beyond where Gila's wood-streams westward roll 
In savage grandeur ; strange this cared-for child, 
When watched by pious hearts so good and mild 

In his new Canaan home, should sigh again 

For pagan palms and lands across the main! 



H. P. M. 



SUPPOSED TO HAVK BEExV THE MOST POETICAL THOUGHTS OF 
A FKEEMONTER.) 



. MAN live§ up in Underhill, 

(A town well fenced around with mountains,) 
/"ho says that Slavery, gqpd or ill, 

Should have its half earth's flowers and foun- 



r good or ill, he terms it first, 
Yet frankly owns, with *' you and me,'' 

hat 'tis the foulest, most accurst 
Vile stain upon humanity. 

it still he swears it's right as good 
To live and claim the law's protection, 
15 even Christ's meekest brotherhood, 
That, chastened, bows to love's correction. 



72 if. p. M. 

Now I would ask him what is law. 
And what the use of legislation, 

And all the plans sage heads can draw 
To glorify this freedom nation, — 

If noblest Right and vilest Wrong 
Must have an equal compensation! 

Heaven ! watch o'er and suffer long 
A freedom-boasting, slavish nation ! 



MENDEE'S DAUGHTER. 



I. 

The sun was sloping down the wooded west, 
The eastern wooded hills were robed in gold 
The wooded vale between was paling cold, 

And night, at Mendee's wigwam, gone to rest. 



II. 

A little girl was playing on the shore 

Of a broad river, which rolled strong and deep 
Its world of waters from the farthest steep 

That crowns the Rocky Mountains evermore. 



III. 
Which rolled its waves five thousand miles along, 
By frowning mountains and most gloomy groves, 
(In which the fierce-eyed lynx and panther roves) 
Down to the Gulf renowned in Aztec song. 
7 



74 mendee's daughter. 

IV. 
'Twas June. The Natches Chieftain was away 
Hunting the dusk ox, that had left ere now 
Its rocky realm beneath the mountain's brow, 
To sport where deeper shades, where richer pas- 
tures lay. 

V. 

The Natches wife had also taken leave. 

Plucking the luscious fruits which Nature yields, 
Careless of owners, in her countless fields; 

So Mendee's Looay played alone this eve. 



VI. 

And a sweet child she was of four bright years, 
A laughing thing, — a sweet, bright Indian girl, 
All decked with bead, and costly shell, and 
pearl. 

As well beseemed the queen of " Nature's Peers.'' 



VIT. 

Fair — Life is passing fair, until 'tis tried; 

And Looay had but gazed on wayside flowers, 
And sported on through blithesome sunny hours. 
Unheeding that beyond surged "Time's ungentle 
tide." 



MENDEE'S DAUGHTER. 75 

VIII. 

Unheeding that the raft which came to-day 

Against the bank where she so careless played, 
Should be by Neptune's lightest fancy stayed, 

Then treacherous borne by his mad waves away ! 



IX. 

And Mendee's wigwam shall no more be blest 
By the light presence of this angel form ! 
And has she passed like snow-wreath in the 
storm. 

Or like the twilight down the wooded west ? 



X. 

And Mendee dreams it not ! For he is far 
Hunting the dusk ox by the mountain steeps, 
And while his lone wife calls "Looay!" and 
weeps, 

All through the long night Mendee dreams of war. 

XI. 

But beauteous Looay — she nor weeps nor cries, 
But stands her hands clasped in imploring mood. 
While her dark eyes gaze mournful on the flood. 

And on the swiftly flitting woods and skies. 



76 mendee's daughter. 



XII. 



Oh, Christ! would that some Raphael might see, 
And sketch out Naiure's attitude of prayer, 
Oi that a Poet might behold her there, 

And henceforth dream of her divinity ! 



XIII. 

Or would some Christians find her! They should 
take 
Her to their home, and cherish her, and love 
As a pure godsend from the realms above — 

Should cherish her for love and Jesu's sake. 



XIV. 

And she was found by Christians, as they say, 
' ' While yet the sun was struggling up the East,' 
For Chopart owned a Christian name, at least, 

And found, and took our heroine away. 



XV. 

And boasting Christians, knowing Mendee well, 
Did they take Looay to her home again ? 
Or did they teach her Christ for sinners slain, 

And of His home where angels love to dwell ? 



mendee's daughter. 77 

XVI. 

Say, should they not ? But they did not, and so 
A life went out in darkness that begun 
So rich in radiance of joy, the sun 

Saw not a gladder where his beams might go. 



XVII. 

They should, but did not, no — but made her slave, 
A villain slave that kingly daughter creeps, — 
Though parents sigh, and injured Heaven weeps, 

They swear to scourge her to a villain's grave ! 



BOYHOOD. 



Black clouds have shut around, and night 

With utter loneliness of darkness come 
To blind and bar about the little light 

That disappointment's sorrow left to roam 
To my sick spirit. — When hopes glowing bright, 

All wont to be the guiding stars of life, 
Have set, what else may cheer the longing sight 

But a loved past ? — There was a time when Joy 
Could call me all her own — 

Love knew no base alloy, 
Ambition knew not but his will should throne 
The skies if he commanded, and alone 

I would have promised me, in spite of every care, 

A world to bear, 
And so felt stronger for the promise, — thrilled 

with joy 
At the vast work before me, for — I was a boy ! 



A DAY. 



IN SIX PARTS. 



I. — EVENING. 



It is good to dream an evening hour 
Of the hateful present away with the past, 

When I thought I had friends, and joyed in the 
dower 
As of heaven — but ah ! it would not last. 



II. — MORNING, 

I waked — the morn arose with air 
Of conscious beauty, proud and fair ; 
The twilight loved the mountain brow. 
And set with gems its crest of snow. — 
The birds that slept beneath the grove, 
Awake to sing of joy and love. 
Until the mountains make reply; 
The very trees stand smiting by, 
As if the angel-forms of day 
Had kissed the tears of night away. 



\ 



80 A DAY. 

III. — TO FELICE. 

Yes, "dearest friend"— for thou art this to me 

When morn wakes life, 
Art this when the sunbeams float dreamily 

O'er the day's strife. 

But when the sun-gods, in their radiant home. 

Weave tears with light, 
And the frowning shades, as they westward roam. 

Bear the swift night — 

When the starry spheres sparkle^ thoughts not their 
own 

In heaven above, 
And the restless winds whisper wild and lone. 

Thou art more, dear love! 



IV. — TO LTJLTT. 

Lulu ! where is thy home — where ? 
On the earth, or in the air, 

Or down in the wave-roofed sea? 
I would not know, I. would not care, 
Yet still I sigh, and wonder where. 

Whence can such beauty be ? 



A DAY. 81 

If angels are by mortals seen, 
Methinks thou hast an angel's mien. 

Lulu divinely fair ! 
How beautiful — how high thy air; 
No need of diamonds to deck thy hair. 

And call thee fair. 

Lulu so fair, and can it be 
That a saddened thought dares come to thee, — 
Hast ever longed for Love's sweet care? 
Or in summer bower or in autumn eve 
Have you heard his voice, have you seen Love 
weave 

His heart-tangling woof 
From the passionate eyes 
Of the bending skies, 

And the winds that grieve! 



V. — THE POET, 

0, life has been sad and weary, wild 

With the poet-child! 

Poet-man, I should say, a king on his throne 

Of earth-and-time powers, 
But with sceptre o'ergrown, 

Heavy weighed down with flowers ! 



A DAY. 



VI. EVENING AGAIN. 



Nights with starry radiance bright, 
Nights aglow with " Northern Light," 
Nights alive with meteor gleams. 
Nights for musing fancy's dreams, 
Farewell ! 



Nights to con the genius-page, 
Heaven's thought-gifts for every age, 
Nights for angry storms to rage 
As the east-shades thicken o'er. 
Nights that may return no more. 
Farewell! 



EFFIE ANGELL. 



Effie with the dark brown hair, 

Effie of the laughing eye, 
Lips which angels fain might share 

Though to share them were to die, 
Smiles the angels well might wear, 

When they near the Throne Most High, 
Has thy heart e'er known a care ? 

Can thy lips have known a sigh? 



Effie's very name is power, 

Sways her world with wondrous might, 
For she bears the angels' dower 

Throned on Fame's serenest hight. — 
Can it be that clouds e'er lower 

Round thy angel- trancing sight ? 
Canst thou've known a saddening hour 

With thy lyre, the heaven's delight? 



84 EFFIE ANGELA 

Effie, angel with such light 

Beaming from such laughing eyes. 
Seemed a Queen of Joy last night, 

Reigning in some Paradise ! 
All hearts knelt beneath their might, 

Yet could not ever hope to rise — 
I would have given the world last night, 

To know such lips could utter sighs I 



Effie, angel without care! 

In the garden-bower to night — 
Oh, how dififerent her air! 

For those eyes spoke such delight 
To a soul of what dispair, — 

Tears had veiled their burning light. 
Yet, Christ, what love was there!— 

Effie, what of Fame to-night? 



CHATHAM. 



May is always bright and gay 
When it comes up Chatham way, 
Chatham banks were very fair 
When Spring, and you, and I were there, 
Without a care. 



Chatham is a bustling town, 
But the Stena Kill comes down 
(Nursling from old Berkshire's breast) 
Humming songs of dreamy rest 
Adown the West — 



Down by Burnsted, simple scene, 
Chatham, of thy banks of green. 
Homely cottage built of wood, 
Over which in solitude 

Three chestnuts brood. 
8 



36 CHATHAM. 

With a garden down below 
Full of paths the fairies know, 
Which lead out through leafy doors 
To the river, o'er whose shores 
Broad sycamores 



Do only spread and tower each hour, 
And cast a shade of darker power, 
So that, however bright the days, 
No light but twilight ever strays 
O'er the dark ways. 



I know it is a homely scene, 
Cottage on some banks of green. 
Near the village, yet away 
So far that sounds thy strife, to-day, 
Like yesterday — 



And therefore why — what can there be, 
Makes the place so dear to me ? 
Asked in vain I Madame Roe, — 
Now Jenny of the long-ago, 
Say, do you know? 



CHATHAM. 87 



Must be that some magic dwells, 
Chatham, in thy simple dells, 
For, while all years rose and set, 
I've been trying to forget, 
And cannot yet! 



Tried, dear Jenny Mayne, and yet 
Jove might just as well forget, — 
For whatever world was seen. 
Sudden rose up right between, 
Old Chatham Green. 



And whatever bright-eyed hours 
Flitted 'neath the orange bowers. 
Sudden rose the forms of syne, 
And in the midst one brow divine 
I'd swear was thine. 



So many a year with anxious eye 
Hath toiled its pathway through the sky, 
And many a land, and many a sea — 
That never heard of God, or thee — 
Has listened me — 



88 CHATHAM, 

Many a land and sea I've passed, 
Thinking that perhaps at last 
Heaven might give me leave to rise 
From the spell that always lies 
In those dark eyes! 



Magic scenes and fairy forms ! 
Jenny, can yoii tell what charms 
In those Chatham valleys lie? 
Would I might know ere I die 
What spell, and why! 



JENNIE MAYNE. 



, Those are the eyes I love to see, 

Both light and dark like twilight shadows, 

Merrily dancing on and on 
Like song-birds o'er the meadows. 

Dark brown hair with golden tints 

A glorious lily brow adorning, 
Like day, when first his soft smile wakes 

The dreamy gold of morning. 

And mouth! if such old Jove should see. 

Old Jove from his cloud-paved throne wert scon 
missing; 

For nothing should keep him, more than me, 
From the smile of such lips, and — kissing. 

More than me, Jane, when I felt thy proud eyes, 
And thy rich locks my forehead enwreathing. 

And Time stopped awhile on his restless course 
To note thy lips' soft breathing. 



90 JENNIE MAYNE. 

More than me, Jennie; 0! do not frown, 
For I did love thee once, that is certain; 

And did kiss thee once, as the slant sun fell. 
And night drew her starry curtain. 

And though swiftly the years have fled since then, 
Till Age swears my jet locks are hoary. 

Still I love to look on such light -and- dark eyes, 
And dark locks of golden glory I 



NIGHTS FOR DAYS. 



NIGHTS FOR DiYS, 



INTRODUCTION. 

"WHO CARES FOR THE FARMER BOY? 

The snowy storm-birds of winter are all gone; March winds 
and frosts have nearly brought on April showers, even among 
the cold mountains of Vermont. The sun with each rising 
is gradually creeping back to its long deserted path in the 
North, and on many a favored knoll is warming into tearful 
smiles the wild flowers, ■ hid and cherished till now by 
December's snows. The summer birds have comeback from 
far southern bowers, and now begin to cheer our leafless woods 
with their Eden music. Squirrels dance out from their wild 
log dens and chatter on the topmost branches ; the wood- 
peckers commence their perpetual monotonous rapping — 
rapping ; the breezes breathe of sunnier climes, and swell the 
faintly trickling rills to rushing torrents — it thaws by day 
and freezes by night, and the sugar- making goes on briskly. 

But who does care for the farmer-boy ? — He was up and in 



94 INTRODUCTION. 

the woods before the sun had dared to light up its accus- 
tomed pathway — the notch in the mountains. He has swung 
the huge potash kettle to its place and rolled heavy heac h 
logs around for an arch ; he has kindled a fire from some 
buried cinders ; he has filled his kettle from overflowing 
buck-ts ; he has cooked his breakfast by the flaming boiling- 
fire ; and his dinner, and his supper; he has stopped in 
his weary round with his gathering pails to listen to the new 
bird-warblings, and has made the birds listen in turn to notes 
as wild and thrilling — but the day is now gone, and the twi- 
light, kissing its last "good-night" upon the pure white moun- 
tain's brow, is gone, and it is deep night. 

What now ? The spruce ridge on the East, so brightly 

green in the daylight, is like a wall of darkness that 
towers up against the glowing stars. The tall maples and 
beeches wave dreamily by the smoke that curls among their 
ancient boughs ; and the cat-like sawyer-owl, stealing out 
from his bushy eyrie, has changed the cheerful song of the 
day-birds to a shrieking wail; and the farm-boy from reading 
by the wood light has turned to noting the scenery around 
him — the power-fraught steam that writhes and curls from 
the bubbling sap, and the bright sparks that play ofl" from the 
parent fire, and soar away in spite of — brighter for the very 
darkness closing round — soar and — go out, — and before he 
is aware of it he is dreaming. 

He has been reading of heroes; Carlyle's "Heroes and 
Hero Worship," and Lamartine's Heroes of the French Re- 



INTRODUCTION. ^95 

volution, and now his bosom heaves with generous emula- 
tion; his heart glows with conscious power to achieve 

sowjc^Atwg- worthy man's high being — Destiny: to rise — soar, 
even like the fire-flakes now before Mm, and what — go out ? 
"Yes he speaks aloud as lie thrusts the poker with an ex- 
pressive emphasis against the brands till a glittering wreath 
of sparks is formed high above, ''better go out thun— than 
never burn at all T^ 

Reckless youth! you know not what you do-— you know not 
what a bitter freezing world is before you. Here you have a 
home, friends •, quiet bumble friends to be sure, but still friends ! 

with whom you can pursue an honest, peaceful, happy life 

you can be quite rich, indeed, if you desire it. " Canst thou 
not be content ?" 

He laid around more wood, great heaps of birch and hard- 
hack sticks ; drew up his rude seat nearer to the fire and sat 
down again, but dark sad thoughts did not keep away this 
time. He thought of the future — of the world — of the great 
drama of life. " It is a crowding world," he continued aloud, 
**a hard life, a scrambling, selfish, crowding business— life; 
there are more great and good now than can gain a foothold, 
and there are certainly too many 6ac^/" Would he had known 
the Poet's words ; 

** Self-ease is pain; thy only rest 
Is labor for a worthy end.'* 



Vb INTRODUCTION. 

But One did care for him — One who ever deigns to care for 
the sad, the weary, or the broken-hearted ; and He has so 
ordained it that those who labor most diligently shall rest 
most peacefnlly. 

Exhausted with his day's toil he leaned his head over a- 
gainst a broad stump, witlx a common blanket for a pillow, 
and sleep, though unbidden, found him — found him with no 
watchers hut the wild-swaying forest trees, and the shades 
and heaven's stars looking down on his pure brow. And he 
dreamed — what he never told — but he has written it down 
under the veil of fiction, and in his notes ; and, though not 
superstitious, who can say but that the impress of that angel- 
form of beauty smiling from heaven, shall cheer him onward 
forever in a toilsome yet heroic career of Greatness 1 



1 



11. 

FAERIE'S QUESTION. 



" Will friends know and love in Heaven 
Friends they love so fondly here?'' 

Said my darling friend one even 
Of this wild and wintry year. 

"It must be,'* answered onr Carrie, 

Ere Fd thought to make reply. 
It must be, my darling Faerie, 

Or this world is all a lie. 

I know this is a hard, unfeeling. 

And most utilitarian age — 
Most cold, in apathy congealing — 

Most sternly steeled in every page. 

I know this age is very golden, 
For golden lamps God's sun outblaze, 

Which makes Dame Nature's laws, so olden, 
Look very strangely out of place. 
9 



98 FAERIE'S QUESTION. 

And yet there are whom earth inherits, 
And jostles on with Mammon's crew, 

Who own gold-love poor food for spirits, 
And so love friends, as I do you. 

Yet some souls seek so close communion. 
Even here beneath cold Mammon's reign, 

That Death could never break their union. 
But for the hope to meet again — 

To meet again beyond the heavens 
That smile to frown in such disdain, 

Beyond the flitting morns and evens 
That trance our longing hearts in vain. 

" It must be friends will know," said Carrie, 
" The friends they love so fondly here." 

It must be so, my darling Faerie, 
Or Heaven itself were very dear! 



III. 

I'LL REMEMBER." 



" I'LL remember'' — it floats 

In my memory, 
Like the golden notes 
Of yesterday; 
Like the songs of the spheres that wing from the 

sky, 
And encircle the world with harmony. 



** I'll remember '' — it weaves 

O'er my rough path rich bowers. 
Thy smiles for the leaves, 
Thy love for the flowers, — 
It charms the welkin, though writhing with storms, 
Into Heaven-borne clouds, lit by rainbow forms! 



lY. 

STENA KILL. 



L 
I LOVE the songs of quiet streams, 
Just floating in the dusk that seems 
Between this and the land of dreams — 

What time the world grows hushed and still, 
Till the sad moon looks o'er the hill, 
And listens to the whippoorwill — 

What time the swallow's drowsy wing 
Falls downward by the low woods' ring. 
Till lost like an imagining — 

What time the very leaves seem grown 
Upon the breathless air alone, 
Upon the stirless ether strown — 

Till the sad shades of night sweep down 

From Adirondack's bosky throne, 

And the winds rouse them with a moan ! 



STENA KILL. 101 

II. 

And yet this glorious autumn eve, 
What is it makes all Nature grieve, 
But dreaming dreams of Genevieve? 

And yet there is a soul should light 
This gloomy, mourning autumn night 
Into a day divinely bright. 

And yet could those deep beaming eyes 
Greet mine — with what a glad surprise. 
As a freed seraph's, paradise! 

Yet could I sit upon this shore, 
(As we did on one night before,) 
Till the stars bent the tree-tops o'er — 

Till the mad, bustling world grew still, 
And the loved moon rose o'er the hill 
To listen to the whippoorwill — 

Till weary sleep should fold her wing, 
And the drowsed birds forget to sing, 
And naught be heard but whispering 

Of the deep waves as on they rove, 
Of the light boughs in Heaven above. 
And of those lips of her I love, — 

And could—but, well-a-day ! alone 
Must my path henceforth lengthen on 
Till life's last, dreary day— is done ! 



V. 

ADEL. 



Night, wading the ocean, 

Leans her head on the sky. 
Disheveled her tresses 

Trail the clouds floating by, 
And she dreams that a loved one 

Of the dark fringed eye, 
A loved — how much loved one ! 

Is slumbering nigh. 

Now she feels the soft breath 

Of the loved sleeper nigh, 
Now she listens a whisper 

That echoes a sigh. 
Now anxious she startles 

Lest Dangers lurk by. 
Now she feels a soft kiss 

Thrill with joy of the sky! 



ADEL. 103 



Ah ! who has not loved one 

Of the soul- welling eye, 
And wept at the parting 

With many a sigh, 
And wondered a loved one 

Like Adel could die, 
And wondered and longed 

To dream in the sky ! 



VI. 

AT TEN." 



I. 

Wearily on 
Plod the world's millions — 
All through the morning, 

Though crowned with heaven's sunbeams, 
All through the mid-day 

Though crowned with heaven's sun, 
All through the evening, 

Though heaven, with her laughing stars. 
Rushes so wildly forth — 
All through the evening. 

Though night draws her curtained bars 
Over the sleeping earth, 
Until " Ten.'' And what then? 

Does then all toil cease ? 
Does some sweet angel then 
Come to each soul again. 
Whispering peace ? 



AT TEN. 105 



11. 



Wearily on 
Plod the world's millions — 
Some midst the rustling cane, 

Prove themselves abject slaves, 
Some midst the golden grain, 

Roam the free prairie's waves. 
There, midst the untamed woods, 
Still the swart hunter broods — 
Here, midst the city's din, 
Wander the throng of sin, 
Glad night shall soon begin, 

Death's veil borrow — 
Brave hearts are toiling there. 
Whose every thought's a prayer, 
In spite of fell Despair, 

Drunk with all sorrow — 
Brave hearts are struggling here 

Spite of all world-cares weigh, 

Spite of to-morrow, 
Whose glowing thoughts appear 
Too pure for sin's dark sphere, 

Too bright for child of clay , 

Toiling each anxious day 
Until " Ten,'' And what then ? 

Oh, this still, holy even, 



106 AT TEN. 

Does peace each heart beguile, 
Does some sweet angel smile 
On each lone soul the while, 
Whispering Heaven! 



III.' 

Wearily on 
Plod the world's millions — 
Each bearing ill or worse, 
Nature's eld, primal curse. 
Where the mad waves of men 
Surge round and round again, 

Mindless as markless, 
I, with the millions. 
Am pushing on and on, 
Where all the world has gone 

Aye to Death's darkness — 
So in this mad turmoil, 
Here do I ever toil 

Spite of all darkness ! 
Why does not hope decay. 
Wearied from day to day, 
And the mad soul gainsay 

Life, Heaven and perish! 
Why? I will tell you, Moir, 
I am oft " tempted sore," 



AT TEN. 107 

Through all the burning day 
Wearing God's hours away, 
Until " Ten.'» And what then? 
Oh, you should know the air, 
Of a sweet angel, fair, 
Waiting to smile on me 
With eyes of such beauteous blee, — 
Then, spite of Mockery, 
Life crowned so Fairily, 
Who would not cherish ! 



VII. 



LOST! 



I LOVED a flower one morn in May, 
But time was light and life was gay, 
And birds entranced the dreamy bowers. 
And laughter chased the golden hours. 
I started — lo, the westering day 
Had passed away ! 

I sought beneath the twilight gray 
For that loved flower of early May, 
I hunted long, and far, and wide. 
And found each beauty-flower beside. 
But wept because the loved one gay 
Had passed away ! 



VIII. 

THE ANGELS' FLOWERS. 



*Tis midnight by the dreamy stars, 

And the moon looks on the floor; 
And the angels are circling dovyn to the bowers 

They loved in Eden before. 

They come — I can tell the glow of their smile 

Where the ether deeper blushes : 
They come — I can tell their gentle tread 

Where the darkness deeper hushes. 

They come — I can tell their flitting wings 

O'er the music the zephyr weaves; 
And the rustling of their tiny feet 

On the trembling aspen leaves. 

They have passed the shade- wreathed chestnut now 

By the sorrowing sycamore, — 
They are stooping now to kiss the flowers 

They loved in the Eden before ! 
10 



IX. 

AT REST. 



The Night is resting now, 
And her dark and placid brow 
Is pillowed soft and fair 

In the sky, — 
And I know her form is there 
By the cloudlets soft and fair 

Mantling nigh. 



The Moon with radiance rare 
Watches now with anxious care 
From her gilded throne above 

The deep sky, — 
And I know kind passions move 
By the starry looks of love 
Bending nigh. 



AT REST. Ill 

The world is resting now, 
And its fever-throbbing brow 
Is pillowed soft by care 

Of the sky,— 
Heaven is watching with sweet care 
O'er the holy ones and fair 

Sleeping nigh! 



BURNSTED. 



Do you know this charmed vale. 

This Chatham of old? 
Do you know where the twilight 

Melts the air into gold — 
Where the clouds hid© their frowns 

Beneath rainbow-hued bars, 
And the trees tower up 

Till they tiss the bright stars ? 

Do you know where the wavelets 

Of the Stenakill fall 
With a musical murmur, 

As night trances all ? 
Do you know where the wavelets 

Ne'er so laughingly glide, 
As when dark eyed maidens 

Are listening beside ? ♦ 



BURNSTED. 113 



Once they whispered a story 

Of darkness and fear, 
E'en a hero of Woden 

Might startle to hear — 
How mortals and brothers 

Met their brothers at bay, 
And fought by these waters 

Till the sun turned away, 

And left Night with her shadows 

To weep o'er the slain; 
0, may never such slaughter 

Curse this fair land again ; 
But may dim twilights golden 

Chase bright days o'er the sky. 
And the waves ever whisper 

Love to maids listening nigh. 



XI. 

TO JAYNE. 



0, a thousand shades 

Have passed the sun, 
And a thousand days 

Their bright paths run, 
And a thousand eyes 

Have kissed the brow 
Of the twilight mountains* 

As even now. 
And a thousand times 

Have I vowed to forget, 
And a thousand times more 

I love thee yet — 
Jayne, wilt love back again 

0, a thousand clouds 
Have tried to scorn 

The dewy splendors 
Of blushing morn, 



TO JAYNB. 115 

And a thousand clouds, 

From darkling above, 
Have melted to sparkling 

Rainbows of love. 
And a thousand times 

Have I left thee before. 
Yet love thee each day 

A thousand times more — 
Jayne, wilt love back again ! 



XII. 



GOOD-NIGHT. 



Good-night 1 
Good-night to the wooing breeze 

That kisses my roses o'er, 
Good-night to the listening trees. 

That stand beside my door, 
Good-night to the kindly shades 

That have loved me all nights before, 
Good-night to the dark-eyed maids, 

yes, one *' good-night" more. 

Good -night I 
Good-night to the soaring visions 

That careered day's sunbeams along. 
Good-night to the soul's elysians. 

The world of love and song, 
Good-night to the twilight glades, 

That lead to the spirit shore. 
Good-night to the dark-eyed maids, 

yes, one "good-night" more! 



XIII. 

ELLA, OF THEE! 



While the morn wakes up lil'e, 

Yawning languidly, 
And day's anxious strife 

Goes prosingly by, 
Till, with mad splendors rife, 

The slant sunbeams die, 
I toil apart from the world alone. 
And muse till the twilight has nestled down, 
Ella, of thee! 

While the dewy shades sweep 

Their raven locks 
O'er the forests deep — 
As the owlet knocks. 
And crickets sleep 
Beneath the rocks, 
I sit me down with the night alone, 
And dream till the moon has climbed her 
throne, 

Ella, of thee! 



118 ELLA, OF THEE. 

While the scene grows dimmer 

On mountain and wold, 
Till the moon's faintest shimmer 

Is westering told, 
And the dark towers grimmer 
All earth to infold, 
I sit me down with the night alone, 
And dream till the last wild star is gone, 
Ella, of thee! 



XIV. 

AWAY. 



One token-word. Black clouds with craggy wings 

Have chased a drowning night of shades away, 
And morning, with her thousand offerings 

Of glowing beauty, has been barred to»day. 
Yet not all cheerless is the world around, 

For, far against the sky the mountains grim 
Are drunk with light— and warbling notes pro- 
found 

Swell from the forests dim. 

And gray old eagles eddy as they pass, 

Winging afar from deep immensity; 

And brooklets born where battling torrents be, 
Low-hushed by zephyrs, nestle in the grass. 
And now aslope the vales where lead mists creep,. 

And aspens tremble as the storm-god dreams, 
And o'er the lily beds where Naiads sleep 

The sunlight streams. 



120 AWAY. 

Ah, well-a-day! ^tis open toil-tirae new, 

And I must break awhile the magic spell, 
Must bind my youth-thought hopes about my brow. 

And push me forward for the guerdon well. 
Eva, wilt go with me? I may not tell 

Thee life will always be as bright and gay 
As when Time's fairy-chiming, vesper bell 

Proclaims to flowers the marriage eve of May— 

Perchance this morn may not be glad as when 
Old Winter took his snowy curtains down. 

And Spring sat with thee in the Stena glen. 
And wove her blossoms with thy tresses brown. 

And gave thee rosebuds with her kisses sweet. 
And looked love in thine eyes — for long since then 

The Summer with slow pace and sunburnt feet, 

And girdle of thick leaves and ripening wheat 

Passed the earth by, and Autumn sauntered forth ; 

Yet the same garments, which the south winds 
wove 
With purling rain-drops from the dewy north. 

Are left the grove. — 
Eva, wilt come with me — wilt thou not say? 

The sun careers his pathway o'er the sea; 
I would not hie me up the mountains gray 

Apart from thee! 



AWAY. 121 

Wilt come ? Beneath this living roof of trees, 
Whose ancient boughs swim in the heights above, 

Are twined with luscious fruits wild flowers of love, 
And singing bees 

Go on their way, and winds — and birds flit by 
En wreathed in so much beauty ofie would say 
Empyrian spirits plume their wings to-day 

Beneath the sky. 

Away shall be our course, embowered with vines, 
That climb caressed by birches, fragrant sweet, 

Or where the grandeur-towering mountain pines 
Speak courage meet ! 

No meteor passions here. Rapt Energy 

Must joy each moment, and the love which flows 
From out the curtain of the heart's repose 

But nerve life's purpose high. 

And love that ever wings from thy dark eyes. 

So deep, and yet so sparkling full of fire, 
Must nerve a spirit's pinions aye to rise, 

To soar aye higher. — 
The vessel rocks — alas ! and but a dream? 

'Tis dear. Too true "away,'' for thou from here 
Art far» Ah, now I knovv^ me well the sea-bird's 
scream, 

And — that hid parting tear I 
31 



122 AWAY. 

One word — " remember!" How the thoughtless cars 

With brazen feet sped on their iron path, 
Till June's mazed sun went down the hills in wrath, 

And lone night came beneath the dizzy stars, 
That glimmered through their rifted folds of clouds 

Like Hope ancfjoy in shrouds — 
And I was borne with Day 

Away. 

Again was changed. I started at the sigh 

Of the storm spirit, and the gurgling moan 
Of wild lost waves, as shouting winds rushed by, 

And pent-up bil'ows struggled with a groan, — 
Pale lights flashed out from the hurrying sea. 

Then fainted from their eyries, ocean- worn, 
In the dim distance — madly I was borne 

Away from thee! 



XV. 

NOVEMBER. 



The weary, dreary winds are blowing 

Through the leafless trees sighing and sere, 

The hours, with a mournful gaze, keep going, 
Going back to the silent year. 

The past 

Snail have whelmed ail the weeping world at last ! 

Yestermorn, Lizzie, thou laughed with us all 
In our home by the Stena Kill river, 

And our birds sang the sweetest lays of the fall, 
But to-day their wild notes sadly quiver; 

At last 

Thou art gone aye from us like the silent past. 

Yestereve, Lizzie, the twilight smiled 

As day by the tresses of night was creeping, 

And the rivulet's bhthe waves were in joyance be- 
guiled — 
But alas, now our Carrie is sadly weeping 

For thee, 

And the waves hurry now to their tomb in the sea ! 



124 NOVEMBER. 

To-morrow will bring thee thy old friends again 
To whom thy first child-love was plighted, 

And the long-thought-of wilds of Clyna Kill glen 
Thou'lt roam as when love first delighted, 

And dream 

That the world has grown cold like the CJyna's 
rough stream. 

But the hearth-fire will wake thee from fancies like 
these, 

And thy mirth shall enliven the gloaming, 
Till night with dark wings o'ershadows the seas 

And the cliffs where the Clyna is foaming. 
Bright eyes 

Shall gladden thy home as the st^rrs do the skies. 

And bright eyes cease dreaming our past was once 
dear. 
And our home by the Stena Kill river, 
And so while the winters rage sullen and drear, 

And summers enchant life forever, 
Tl.iou'lt forget 

Friends that love thee as well as friends ever 
loved yet ! 



XYI. 

UNDERHILL. 



Tis a curtained, foggy, night scene 
Since the snowy day went by, 

Drowsy clouds black wrapped in shadows 
Far against the mountains lie, 

While the winds keep whistling music 
To the stars that watch the sky. 

Aged matron chats with freedom, 

Tells her tales of long ago ; 
Eighty summers came and faded 

Like the driving wreaths of snow, 
Life itself shall scon have faded 

From this darkened vale below, 

To a higher and a better 

World where sorrow comes not aye — 



126 UNDERHILL. 

And though she thinks the present kindly 
With loved friends to cheer the way, 

So her life of morns and evens 
Passes happily away. 

Yet the youthful days are fairest — 
Ah, those joyous mountain braes, 

And the friends that sported with us 
Through all flowery, leafy ways, 

Listening to the Brown's wild chorus— 
Oh, those glorious, ancient days! 



XYII. 

ALONE. 



I. 
He knew her when young Spring was coming near 
With eye of light, and tresses crowned with 
flowers 
And budding leaves, whilom where Winter blear 
Had weary shivered through the long, dark 

hours, 
And while bland Summer wove rich, languid 
bowers, 

And sat down with them in each forest glen. 
Till Autumn, mocking, hurled his frosty showers, 
— Earle loved her then! 

II. 

It was a charmed morning, passing fair 
With amber light distilled through tissue screens 

Of fragrant birch — when birds enthronged the air 
With heart-gushed warb lings, where the lone 
brook leans 



Mk 



128 ALONE. 

To raptured flower-lips with the softest breath, 

And Nature smiles as Eden were again 
Impaled within these earth-ranged walls of death, 
Jayne loved him then ! 

III. 

Oh, there is Heaven foreknown when spirits meet 

Enthrilled with holy passion into one, 
Though world-eyed Wisdom breaks communion 
sweet 

But just begun. 
And who shall say that God does not delight 

To see His children love (though short the while) 
As Angels would if Heaven's sun, always bright, 

Ne'er looked upon a world of sin and guile! 



IV. 

It cannot be that Goodness e'er enjoys 

The torture of a soul His breath gave breath, 
Ah no! full oft He weeps while He destroys. 

That proud Sin's wages should be always Death! 
But what of Sin? Love was our theme erstwhile, 

But Love must not be told without a moan. 
Lest too believing ones should think that Guile 

Had left this fair, bright world to Love alone! 



ALONE. 129 



V. 



Yet all was well, as poet ever sung, 

For kindred spirits to grow rich in power 
That dies not. Fair, and pure, and young, 
They twined themselves a pleasant cottage bower, 

Beside those Alps that throne proud Europe's 
sky. 

Beside those crystal waves called Geneva, 
And all good angels watched them ever nigh, 

As bards would say. 

VI. 

For they had never lost their heart's first truth, — 

Earle had not even thought to give away 
(As men do now) the happiness of youth 

For gold or clay — 
But cheerly sowed his lands on Spring morns 
bright, 

And garnered up his sheaves in Autumn gray. 
And warbled oft the songs a glad heart might, 

From day to day, 

vrr. 

Till seven bright years had decked his garden 
bower, 
And three bright forms played round his thresh- 
hold stone, 



130 ALONE. 

And still Jayne sweetJy smiled as on that hour 

Love first had claimed his own. 
But wo the power (despite Life's pleasant Spring) 

That led him forth from rural paths to gaze 
On bauble toys, which mark the earthly king 

From those enkinged always. 

VIII. 
War's clarion voice called Earle from garden 
bowers. 

He saw lights blaze from palace windows proud, 
And when he neared each castle's haughty towers, 

And mingled with a pearl-bedizened crowd, 
Who scorned the blissful heaven of quiet sleep, 

And mocked the weary night with revels loud. 
He dreamed not that the heart more prone to weep 

Could mask itself in Joy so kingly browed! 

IX. 
And when the dance whirled, set to music thrills, 

It seemed to waken all the harmonies, 
For evil spirits set their cunning wills 

To rob one soul of bliss and cheat the skies, 
And so like fairies looked the direst ills, 

And so like angels all these heartless lies, 
Earle thought their feet tripped lightly like the rills 

That sport the silvery steeps of Paradise! 



ALONE. 131 



X. 



But one (of all) seemed fair beyond a thought, 

He worshipped ere he knew or wondered why. 
Oh, well she minded how each spell was wrought 

To pierce his heart with every smile and sigh — 
Yet all in vain! Love could not stir his heart 

Without awakening love that reigned before ! 
But still the syren vowed her elfish art 

Should bring Earle's regal heart 'neath her vile 
power ! 



XI. 

And so she changed her course, and thronged his 
soul 
With longings for the wealth that glozed his 
eyes. 
Ah-wella-day! Too soon this gained control, 

For here no sentinel armed with his cries! — ^ 
•'Alas!" his angel cried, *' he has forgot 
His home, love, God I and now what is there 
more? 
Take him on whom your bfleful charms have 
wrought. 
And give him what he asks, earth's barren 
power!'' 



132 ALONE, 



XII. 



And Earle's heart shuddered as it heard the rhyme 

Of his false charmer echoing, as they tell, 
Like the soft-lipped and gold-tongued marriage 
chime 

That dies a funeral knell ! 
"All thine,'' she said, "these lordly towers and 
walls!" — 

But while she spoke her rich voice died a moan. 
And echoes sighed along the palace halls — 

"Alone !" 

XIII. 

He started — all were gone! The doors ajar 

Slammed in the night wind, and the jeweled 
lamps. 
So bright erstwhile looked ghastly paled and far. 

Like fatuus fires seen through sepulchral damps. 
A nd couches clad in princely Tyrian there 

Ranged far along b}'' tables richly spread. 
Yet a sick drowse as if to blight and bar 

The very air hung round with chilling dread ! 



XIV. 

With maddened haste he spurned the marble floor, 
Retreating echoes died upon his ear, 



ALONE. 133 

He called the name he loved to breathe before — 

With quivering fear ! 
He searched again. Again the echo falls, 

As of departing feet, came hushed and dread. 
He stopped — and silence brooded o'er the halls, 

As o'er the dead ! 

XV. 

He passed through gilded banquet-room and tower, 

And rich-worked, book-set aisles where Genius 
bound 
Was wont to while away a weary hour 

For the encrowned. 
He sought another and another room — 

Fainting he sank upon the cold hearth-stone ! 
And this is pomp of earth — a gilded tomb 

Alone ! 



12 



NOTES 



LETTERS TO BO^ BROWN". 



I. 



KINDERHOOKLNG. 

My Dear Don: — I know it is bold in me to ad- 
dress you after so many years of absence and 
silence — me, old and dusty, and overgrown with 
the dying weeds of a past-time luxurious life, — yoii, 
young and aspiring, growing to power and fame, 
with the first bright laurels still fresh on your 
brow. 

But if I know you, you will not scorn a friend, 
however crooked his thoughts or trembling his 
hand. It has been so long since I have written, I 
suppose you wonder how I can tell a pen from a 
harpoon, or my own thoughts from Dickens'. I'll 
tell you — I always read and think every day for 



138 LETTERS TO DON BROWN. 

myself, and further than that, it makes but little 
difference whether I write with a pen or a crow- 
bar, if the same while I am truly in earnest. 

Do they say I am old? Perhaps they are right, 
yet how may they know? " We should count time 
by heart throbs." 

After all, Don, what matters it whether I am 
young as the mountain rill that with each shower 
dances itself into life by my cottage door, or old as 
the scraggy maple boughs above, that have out- 
lived the blights and blooms of a thousand chang- 
ing years! Old age does not necessarily bring 
thoughtlessness; I rebel against the fashion of 
coupling these words. It should bring more thought 
— for the prospect aided by memory must be far 
wider, vaster. It is neither necessary nor right 
to grow careless and insensible. I am old; yet 
can I not as well love sport (and jovial frankness,) 
whether I find it in pert Ed. Hills, with six satin 
shirts and a smile for every belle, or yet in portly 
Peter Carringtons, living easily upon a large plan- 
tation and plenty of bread and butter? Can I not 
as well love the bold, graceful, sparkling imper- 
sonation of girlhood and beauty, as Lizzie, or 
Jenny or Minnie ? Indubitably (as Morley would 
say) I do. I do know the difference between the 
" lovely dark-eyed girls of Cadiz," and your life- 
less "ladies" and romping Ovolkinvanstrander- 



KINDERHOOKING. 139- 

burgs. (0-vol-kin-van-strander-burgs!) My young 
friend, words are weak — I wish I could paint. 
(Then Edens would be cheap so that all could have 
them.) First there should be a little bower of a 
cottage peeping out through brilliant groves of 
peach and chestnut trees, and down below a sweet 
little river with its banks covered with sycamores ^ 
and maples, and willows, and Lizzies, and Jennies, 
and Geneve Blanches, (and a swing with you to 
swing them,) and Kinderhook Lake eight miles in 
the background, with th^cars running up there full 
race ahead qf a thunder-storm and a picnic ! 

Next should come all the incidents of the day — 
all the personages (thirty ladies, six gentlemen and 
myself,) and pies, and biscuits, and lemonades, and 
soda waters, and lake waters. 

We left Chatham depot at 9.40 a. m. At first 
the clouds thickened, and we thought they would 
certainly shower on us, and we were ''glad — just 
for incident,'' But when we concluded they would 
not, we forgot our wished-for incident, we were 
gladder. We did not have time to change our mind 
again, for our steed snuffed and snorted as if spurn- 
ing his load, and whistled us along his iron path 
at a mad velocity. 

I suppose all poets understand how much can be 
said on the cars too low for other ears — so I will not 
tell you. Dear Don, I would not wish lo insinuate 



^^^ LETTERS TO DON BROWN. [ 

anything against you, much less against your friei 
thafis,— myself— but your friend must not de 
but that seventy winters have frosted his passio 
as well as his cranium, only he does still lovej 
wild, deep, love-lit eye like Minnie's. He loves 
watch her eye meet his (Charlie's) as if they wi 
looking in to the depths of his spirit-he loves 
see them chat (though he cannot hear a word, 
know!) till with an extra snort and jam backw 
they bring up at their journey's end. 

" What a short ride." - tempora " old CicL 

would have said, ';Who knows which way is t" 

lake?" said Highschylder, It thundered. - It.J 

coming," said Van Ship. . ' I 

You told me once how well you liked the cj 

ladies. Well I like them and hate them,-]ik 

Ihem because I cannot help it, and hate them, ] 

suppose, because I was not a city lady. 

But enough of likes and hates. This much willj 
show why I was pleased and Miss Jenny was rowi 
iiig in our boat beside me, and I was pleased and 
Miss Pierpont, in a rage of distress, was rambling 
around the four corners of Kinderhook, searching 
for the lake and us, which she could not find. 

We took boats at Niversville, a flourishing vil- 
laffe founded by the Dutch Nivers in 1639 and 
composed of a low Dutch groggery, a high Putch 
factory, a low Dutch shed, and six leaky Dutch 



KINDERHOOKING, 141 

SCOWS, worth fifty cents apiece for cheap Dutch 
strainers. 

Well, the next thing after taking boats we rowed 
them, or rode them, up what appeared to me to be 
a long narrow mill pond; but Van Ship said some- 
thing about the river Styx, and "nine times round 
hell.'' I do not know, but I hope he didn't mean 
anything, as he seemed to be a fine " cleverish 
young man.'' 

0, pond lilies and presidents! I for once wished 
I was young. They rode us into the bushes and 
up a stump. The next time I ride with Van Ship 
Der Kirk, I choose to go a-foot. 

My dear Critic, I do not know what picturesque 
means. Professor Newman makes it mean almost 
anything, so I will say that the shore alders of 
this part of our journey, one third in the mud, one 
third in the water, and three feet out of the water, 
made a very picturesque appearance. 

One mile of churning and spattering brought us 
to the long-looked-for Kinderhook Lake. 

We went over to the island, a rolling hill four 
rods long, and covered with a species of cactus 
(I don't know it from horseradish) flowering vines, 
and wild roses. 

This is about the centre of the lake. On the 
north, east, and west, respectively, there are three 
headlands where " the tall trees in pillared ranks 



142 LETTERS TO DON BROWN'. 

come down the borders of the banks'' — oaks, hem-' 
locks, ashes, and pines. 

The northern one is the most of a promontory, 
runs farthest out towards the island centre, and 
has the dryest, most grassy sward; hence chosen 
for our picnic dining-table. I say it was chosen, 
for they (the rest) had the table all spread while 
we were hunting lily-flowers and incidents. 

Is it not strange about those lilies? — how they 
keep reaching up, up from their dark home, it may 
be twenty feet below, all to meet the loving air 
and sunshine — and those incidents, — they are not 
all for the most bold and reckless, say nulla nisi 
ARDUA VIRTUS as many times as you please, the 
careless will yet claim aud have their share of in- 
cidental honors. 

Blanche fell overboard. 

Van Ship had several times told her to be care- 
ful, but it did no good. Unheeding she kept on her 
wanton sport, and soon she found herself sporting 
with the 

" Heartless waves 
Away down where they sleep by mermaid caves.'' 

Here perhaps you will expect about nineteen 
pages and three-quarters of — oh's, and several 
dashes and exclamation points; but if you do, you 
will be disappointed. You will simply find my 



KINDERHOOKING, 143 

simplest of thoughts, namely — I never saw Blanche 
look so beautifully as now when Van S. took her 
from the water, 

I could well imagine myself in fairy or nymph 
land, or in the dreamy Orient with Moore's fairy 
creations proving themselves true, or — well, when 
you behold, you will admit that the scene must 
have been most enchanting. 

The fierce splendor of June was mellowed by 
soft amber-hued clouds that seemed to watch, across 
the sky, bright waves of joy and beauty; birds sang 
and flitted round as if to charm a place for love 
and beauty; the gently sloping hills bent down 
their fairest heads as if to kiss the sleeping beauty 
— all beautiful. 

But this was not the best of it for me ; she, my 
some while heroine, lost all her haughty imperious- 
ness and affectation in her ducking! We landed, 
and she leaned on her benefactor's ( ?) arm as lan- 
guidly and lovingly as heart could wish ! 

It was two past noon before Mr. Cady, Miss 
Pierpont, and Mrs. Tower (the part of our com- 
pany left behind) found us. Dear old Mrs. Tower! 
I remember, even now, the literary advice she gave 
me when I was a mere witling of a beardless boy. 

*' Unless you can write with the greatest ease 
and power, unless it is as natural for you to com- 
pose as to eat, sleep, or breathe — in fine, unless 



144 LETTERS TO DON BROWN. 

you are a born Genius, do not think of this author- 
ship business.'' 

" Yes,*' I replied, *' but who is to determine this 
Genius-power? Who is to sort and brand the 
world of men, so that all may know the Genius- 
kings, and therefore make no mistake?" 

" Posterity," was the ready answer. I thanked 
her for her kind counsel, but was impatient, im- 
petuous then, and thought I could not wait ! 

The day was fast fading into twilight over the 
Hudson valley as we arrived again at Burnsted. 



11 



CHATHAM AS HOME. 

Dear Don: — This is a growing, Anglo-Dutch 
viHage, situated at the junction of the Western, 
Hudson and Harlem Railroads, and of venerable 
railroad antiquity — namely, ten years. It is a 
whistling, smashing place for business, yet we do 
not care, for the Stena Kill (Dutch Steine Kill) 
comes down from the Berkshire Mountains be- 
tween this and Burnsted, and here we are alone. 
Fine sort of loneliness in a Female Seminary, you 
may imagine ! 

Have you seen our blitheful Lizzie? 

Darker eyes ne'er worshipped night — 
Brighter eyes ne'er dazzled Heaven, 

In its radiance of light — 
Deeper eyes ne'er measured Heaven 

In its boundlessness of might ! 

13 



146 LETTERS TO DON BROWN. 



Beauties are abundant. 



Imagine one with a step as free 

As the mermaids that dance the restless sea, 

With tresses as dark as a raven's wing, 

And lovely as fairy's imagining ; 

And with eyes as dark, and sparkling, and deep 

As an angel has, or a sheep, (dear sheep!) 

And though it is well and natural enough for 
you to dream 

Of evergreen isles in a flower-crowned sea. 
Like gems with their wreath of crystal round — 

And life-stars shining placidly 
In heaven's profound — 

yet it were sometimes lonely and cold, even chill- 
ing (for such as I), without other companionship: 
and this has been supplied (since you could not be 
here) by Dr. Crake and the Domine. And, by the 
way, I must be pardoned a surplussage of rythras 
and rhymes (though like Bulwer and Jedediah 
Cleithsbotham, claiming everything good and plea- 
surable myself) that the former of the above- 
named professionals is a poet. Not a common 
writer for a crammed corner of the common news- 
paper press, thanks to the loving sisters of the 
lyre ! but an unbound, unclouded impromptu-ity — 
one who would say, 

*• Though to all there is not given 
Strength for such sublime endeavor, 



CHATHAM AS HOME. 147 

Thus to scale the walls of heaven, 
And to leaven with fiery leaven 

All the hearts of men forever; 
Yet all bards wiiose hearts unblighted 

Honor and believe the presage, 
Bear aloft their torches lighted, 
Gleaming through the realms benighted, 

As they onward bear the message!" 

as easy as the next scribbler would say — Genius. 
And in looks, too, he is the genius, and in some- 
thing more than the vulgar acceptation — that is, 
oddity. Six feet, with deep eyes beneath a massive 
mountain of forehead; it is good to hear him dis- 
course of nature in nature's temple, in our en- 
chanting woods that overspread our enchanting 
river. He is plainly enough to me one of the 
heaven-anointed, yet he has not, and very likely 
never will have, a name in fame — he is not great 
in ambition. He is an anomaly* I cannot as yet 
discover the least trace of what Milton calls the 
last infirmity of noble minds. He loves his wife, 
(who would not such an one?) and mirth, and 
careleas rambles in the woods, and careless songs 
and rhymes ; and I earnestly believe that he throws 
away more poetic timber during each passing year 
than would form an ordinary poet's reputation. I 
have caught a few bits that struck me as peculiar. 
One that seems droll enough for a wild German's 
fancv, I shall call 



148 LETTERS TO DON BROWN. 



JENNY MAYNE. 



May I love you, Jenny Mayne — 

May I love, just a bit? 
As the sun loves the day — 

When night frowns I will quit; 
As the shades love the forest, 

As the forest loves me, 
As all nature must love, 

Jenny Mayne, I'll love thee. 

II. 

0! no, Jenny, do not frown; 

*Tis my right to love all 
That is fiiir, sweet, or blithe, 

In this dark world of gall ! 
I do not ask you, Jenny, 

To love back again: 
But — let me love you, 

Jane! I must — frowns are vain. 

III. 

Jenny, I have loved you 

Through long dreary years; 
You are smiling now, you dove, you, 

You are smiling through your tears. 
I do not ask you, Jenny, 

To love back again. 
Yet — if you will, Jenny, 

It shall never be in vain! 

Very likely imperfect, even from his careless mus- 
ings as they are either drawn from memory or hasty 



CHATHAM AS HOME. 149 

pencil sketches — yet you will make allowance for 
that. I like his description of 

TWILIGHT. 

The sun has set in the dewy west, 
And night has curtained his place of rest 
With gorgeous fabrics of twilight woof. 
That float in rich folds from the golden roof; 

While spangles like stars 

Flash from deepening bars, 
And pictures, like shadows of dreamy trees, 
Hang around where the curtains commingle with 

these; 
And the winds, from surging o'er troubled seas 

And barren strands, 

Clap their mystic hands. 
And hasten to gambol o'er nature's keys! 

Also an exclamation on worldly fame — is it not 
strong? 

Greatness! And is there nothing more of this 
Than what we see in w<iiting upon fame, 

And must the soul a lifetime sigh for bliss 
Which shrinks at last into a dying name, 

A flickering, most meteoric flame? 

There's nothing tru-e but sin to mortals given, 

Unless their wings are bold enough to soar to 
Heaven ! 

And upon 

LOST TIME. 

** They wane apace!" A pale form, we Iked with 
years, 
Said this with ruth and palsy-trembled tones, 



150 LETTERS TO DON BROWN. 

While Autumn's browning folds were wet with 
tears, 
And laughing Summer's songs were turned to 
moans. 
They wane apace — the days that childhood owns 

In the free gush of guileless happiness! 
Full oft the storm-racked cloud high day enthrones, 
And mocks its joyance light with dark distress, 
Till night comes down upon the grave of hope- 
fulness ! 

Talking of valentines, about Saint Valentine's 
day — and a glorious day it was — the Doctor pro- 
posed that each should try a hand at passion- 
picturing. In fifteen rrinutes, and before I had 
finished my third line, out laughed my rival at the 
completion of his impromptu " Valentine," or 
what should be rather named an embodiment of 

LOVE SICKNESS. 

Do night's zeyhyrs warble music, 

Unkenned music to thy soul? 
• Do the fountains of thy spirit. 

Unknown, unwilled, own control? 
'Tis I love thee, 0! I love thee, with such deep, 

unmeasured love, 
I could call the holy angels from their golden thrones 

above 
To witness that I love thee with a deep, unmeasured 

love ! 

0, how weary! (and still roving 
Out amid the storm and wild, 
Fortune's child!) 



CHATHAM AS HOME. 151 

When I think how long I'm loving, 

And thou dost not ever care, 
The great world looks cold and dreary 

Every where; 
And I sink beneath life's weary 

Weight of care! — 
Naught — 0, now heaven's smiles encheer me I' 
Seraph spirits come anear me, 

Winging through the crystal air, 
Borne aloft on balmy pinions, 

0, how fair! 
They are winging near me, near me. 

From the dim celestial shore, 
They are swooping by death's river, 

They soon will bear me o'er — 
So this heinous sin of loving 

Shall be ended evermore ! 

*'Ha!ha! ha!" laughed the Doctor, as he finished 
reading his *'Poe-try;'' but enough of this for an 
old graybeard like me, for, 

Dim in the westering shades that bar 

The falling past, 
Where the rich hues of twilight arew 

On darkness cast, 
Set my life's first guiding star, 

And the last! — 

and I will tell you a word of the Domine — while I 
have time. Not a bit of the pedant or cynic here, 
but honest, frank, hearty. Sunday he preaches, 
to a crowded house, clear ringing truth in a manly 
way, and Monday goes-a-fishing with me. He was 



152 LETTERS TO DON EROWN. 

once a fanner boy, and has burnt charcoal, living 
for weeks the hunter's life, cabined in the wild 
woods. Once he ran away from home, determined 
to be a sailor ; but happening to meet with a gene- 
rous tar who understood his case, he was sent 
back again to his mother. He studied law at 
Poughkeepsie, experienced religion, and now bids 
fair to become one of the first and greatest of the 
sacred orators of our land. 

Mondays and Saturdays we go a-fishing. We 
have crackers and cheese, grapes and peaches for 
dinner. Come down here, Don; we have such 
beautiful moonlight nights, and ladies, and fish, 
and such a perfect picture of a lake to keep 
them in, (the fish, not the ladies,) I know you 
would enjoy it — come. 



in. 



A DIARY, 



Dear Don : — Your genial note has finally 
broken the frozen vacation in our correspondence. 
But (you did not tell me) how is Cape Cod and — 
Louise? And, by the way, have you yet noticed 
any indications of the phenomena which are to 
mark my auspicious return to your Provincetown? 
Would you might, for I fain would visit again your 
unique ocean town, your lovely city in the sea, and 
— Louise! 

And had you really no local news — nothing 
wonderful or strange to tell of the old home ? I 
know she may have been very quiet and sleepy 
with you, yet Nature among our mountains has 
been playing a good many wild pranks during the 
past few weeks. A thunder storm in the winter — 
who ever before heard of such a thing? And lo! 
when the storm was done the earth was deeply 
covered with crystals that reflected back the stilly 
starbeams even to the depths of space again. 



154 LETTERS TO DON BROWN. 

9 
You and Butler are having fine times — yes, 
should think so; law and valentines! All right, I 
suppose; but cannot I receive valentines just as 
well as the lawyer, if he is oldest? And better 
yet, from a Faerie, too, notwithstanding this age 
is so cold and utilitarian. Ay, and complimentary, 
and to me, too, though all the world knows I am 
not so old or wise! Do you believe all you hear 
Sir Incredulous? If not, I'll e'en prove it. There 
you shall read the first verse — only the first, re- 
member. 

*' 0! I dream, I dream of some earnest eyes. 
And they. are dark and bright and deep; 

Bright thoughts, thoughts glad delight to rise 
On the glistening depths where they sometimes 
sleep!'' 

There, I say again, thou wilt not be so skeptical 
in future. 

Ah ! Don, I fear you have forgotten that " be- 
coming soberness and dignity" which you were 
wont to talk so much about. Pretty well if / 
(your *' special wildling") should have to become 
the monitor to a monitor, wouldn't it? You'd 
better believe I could assume the dignity, if I 
should consider it necessary to say to you and 
Butler— 

" Boys, 'tis — 'tis dangerous, boys! Boys! you 



A DIARY. 155 

should consider the words of my friend, Tom 
Moore, when he says, 

*" Take all the pleasures of all the spheres, 
And multiply them by endless years — 
One minute of heaven is worth them all!'» 

And again — 

** Though mine are the gardens of earth and sea, 
And the stars themselves have flowers for me, 
One blossom of heaven outblooms them all!'' 

" Romance with black eyes'' — what's the differ- 
ence, black eyes or blue, so that a beautiful soul 
looks from them? 

Was glad to hear of the reformation in Minnie 
and Charley. The world is dark and sinful enough, 
at best ; still we are ever thankful that 

Time holds his fixed orbit 

Through just or unjust, 
And earth keeps on turning 

In spite of the rust. 

Do you have spiritual rappings at P. ? Should 
not suppose they (the spirits) would dare venture 
in such a lonely sand-girt, sea-girt corner of crea- 
tion. In some parts they are tipping over tables, 
(and brains, too, one would think,) in short, gam- 
bolling in all sorts of spiritually queer ways. 
Don't you believe the prophecy of our *' poetical 
grandfather" is coming to pass? Recollect he 
said — 



156 LETTERS TO DON BROWN. 

** The spirits of boys 

Shall walk the earth, 
And the wildest of joys 

Shall rapp out their mirth!'' 

You ask where I am to attend school this 
spring. Have thought I should attend some 
good school with some pious people, but shall 
not. It is decided that I stay at Chatham (N. Y,), 
on the road to Texas, on the main — Hudson. 

May drd. — Bolder and bolder, if not wiser and 
better, as life wears away. Yes, and do you think 
me a coward? Not this morning. i\o, sir; brave 
as a bravo, bold as a boulder, (an avalanche, I 
mean,) I do not come sneaking along, this time, 
like a truant school boy on a Wednesday morning, 
with his blotted and wrinkled manuscript under 
his arm, but (quisquis, quisquod, quiscunque) I 
brandish it (my foolscap) above my beaver (fools- 
cap) in the style that Crockett calls original, and 
shout like an aboriginal. Wake up, sleepy worlds! 
yes ! hear ye the cause of all my glory — you may 
now know why I have the audacity to write you 
— Ellie told me to ! 

Wish I knew how to make interjections and ex- 
clamation points, I would make a few pages here, 
just to indicate the state of my feelings! But 
never mind, you have a brave imagination, and 
that makes it all right again. Just take half a 



A DIARY. 157 

quire of note paper and write it all nicely over 
with — hs ! and Lo — ohs ! and Ha — has ! and then 
look at it till you fall asleep, and you will have a 
good idea ! 

Ellie told me to write to 

It has just occurred to me that after all, my 
reason, instead of seeming desirably reasonable, 
may eeem very foolishly reason/ess. To wit, you 
may think I am writing for some withered witch- 
of-Endor Ellie, or some romping Van-Strander 
Ellie. I'll look in my dictionary for " authority.'' 
Here, I have found it — will quote: "All Ellies are 
young, graceful, and beautiful.'' Don't you wish 
you had such a dictionary? 

And then, no doubt, I am old enough to swear 
by — my hairs and wrinkles (?), and gray enough 
to tell the truth when I say that Ellie did tell me 
to write to you : but there is still one difficulty. 
She did not tell me ivhat to write, so that I shall 
have to give it up, after all. No, not yet; will go 
and ask her, first, and perhaps she will tell me 
what as well as why. 

What, Miss Ellie? 

'• Make a description ''—of what? Of yourself 
or Venus? Of myself or Mars? Of wisdom or 
the weather? Of the weather, you say — done, if 
you only won't laugh at me. You will not? 

Well then, Don Brown, we have had a right 
14 



158 LETTERS TO DON BROWN. 

thundering day. Old Thor (our thunder god of 
Scandinavian memory) has scowled up his dark 
eyebrows and hurled his huge battle-hammer along 
the rattling, echoing clouds, and ever and anon his 
eyes shot forth lightning fires, as he shouted and 
laughed till thoroughly exhausted, I imagine; and 
now the stern old Thunder-Fighter is weeping, and 
his great tears fall even to the earth, while Frigga, 
or Gees, or Terra, or the wife of Saturn is laugh- 
ing at him through the broken clouds. 

May 5th. — This is what Grace Greenwood would 
call the " fairest morning that ever strayed out of 
Paradise," so rejoicingly carol the birds, so sweetly 
whisper the soft south winds among the budding 
sycamores, and so laughingly falls the rich sunlight. 
Surely this is too glad a time to be homesick, and 
too beautiful a place. Across a dizzy bridge from 
the noisy town, and beneath old sycamores and 
chestnuts, is a fairy dwelling — my new home. I 
like the location. In front and at a pleasant dis- 
tance above the highway is a rolling wooded hill, 
while on the right is a bold, precipitous bank; down 
from which, through the thick- woven maples and 
willows, you may catch the glimpse of a swiftly 
rushing river, while the numerous Dutch villas of 
the town peer beyond. 

Furthermore, something of a classic region is 
this Knickerbocker valley — or growing to be — 



A DIARY. 159 

with its many Kills, and Highlands, and Catskill 
Mountains, — where honest Rip Van Winkle had 
his long nap, — and Sleepy Hollows, and Sunny 
Sides, — as well as a bustling place, with its numer- 
ous railways stretching in almost every direction 
to the principal cities of the United States. But 
more of this next time. 

Was indeed glad to greet that letter dated from 
the " Chapel on the Shore." And so you have, by 
your own free choice and will, barred yourself for- 
ever from poetry and the law — is it so? And you 
are to be a merchant while the ages roll, and while 
the carlin fates, in their nether home, spin out 
your thread of life! Perhaps it is for the best, yet 
I cannot help but regret it— feel disappointed. You 
may become rich— you will, you say; but, after 
all, this heaping up wealth merely for itself is but 
play, man's play, I know; still how much better 

than child's play is it? Perhaps but enough of 

this moralizing. I trust that that soul of yours, 
though wearied and burdened as it must be by an 
accumulation of worldly cares, will still be true to 
its aforetime noble instincts. 

" Going to Montpelier, Vermont.'' This is a 
new turn of the wheel, isn't it? unexpected, at 
least, to me. Hence I shall not have the pleasure 
of seeing you here, though perhaps you will come 
on before you bind yourself, body and soul, to 



160 LETTERS TO DON BROWN. 

Blank and Co. Would you could decide to come 
and study law with me, as I expected. Come 
here and toil with me, and you shall have the as- 
surance that, 

As life's fleeting hours 

Are garnered in days, . 
The mind's magic powers 

Shall not slumbei always. 

Well, at any rate, I am fairly fixed in my pro- 
fession—a noble one I doubt not you will admit. 
Did not expect tlie divine or medical profession 
would endorse this, but here is an expression of a 
distinguished M.D. of New York City, which is 
quite to the purpose: 

" Lawyers — These men, notwithstanding they 
are much denounced, are the real defenders of 
human liberty. The most noble minds of the 
American Revolution were lawyers. I know for a 
certainty that the best and most reliable patriots 
of France, Italy, Poland, Hungary, and Germany 
are lawyers. Lawyers are, in reality, doing a 
glorious and faithful work for mankind. I speak 
of them as a body.'' 

Can any one gainsay this? 

And yet, no doubt, there are many discourage- 
ments in any vocation. Was talking with Mrs. 
R., the somewhat renowned authoress, the other 



A DIARY. 161 

day, concerning what the world was expecting of 
her future; she said she '* was sick of this author- 
ship, there was such a miserable multitude of scrib- 
blers in every department; but if there were only 
about a dozen authors in the world, why then I 
would be an author in earnest." 

" Yes," I replied; " and if there were only a 
dozen farmers, why, then, wouldn't / like to be a 
farmer in earnest ? Perhaps! 



lY. 



AMONG THE BURGHERS. 

My Dear Don: — I wish you were here to-night, 
just for the notion of it — I am in Quakerdom. Im- 
agine to yourself a low-roofed cottage, with wings 
lower, and built every which way — yellow front 
and white- washed back, embowered in a wilderness 
of vines, with white-washed out-buildings and door- 
yard fence — hickory and chestnut-dotted fields 
rolling away to the hills on either hand — a small 
brooklet wimpling down in the midst, and you will 
have a tolerable idea of tlie outside scenery of my 
present domicil — so come in. 

The first apartment is an entry, receiving room, 
some sixteen feet by twenty-four; the door is made 
on the friendly plan — namely, two boards across 
two boards, (you know how?) yet it is nicely pain- 
ted with the most scrupulous yellow. The next 
door to the left, made by the same good and inge- 
nious rule, leads into the sitting-room. 

"Come, will thee have a seat?'' Not an im- 
aginary one, such as you once took in the brook; 



AMONG THE BURGHERS. 16^ 

no, you dreamer; but a regular flag-bottomed 
chair, on a regular soft home-made carpet, by a 
regular hickory- wood fire, (how pleasant!) by a 
regular feminine, bright-eyed thee-thou-thy 
Quakeress Friend, (oh, how cosy !) 

*' With eyes as dark as the Indian sea. " 
I wish you were here, but — good-night. 

Like a bird of passage as I am, I have for the 
sixth time, even now, changed my locale. This is 
novel and exciting, notwithstanding I dreaded it so 
much beforehand. 

" I goes in for the Dutch, you knowed I would.'' 
For the Rockfellers and the Brock Van Deutzers 
and the Ten Van Allstynders. 

Mine host, Tonakson, has half a dozen workmen 
who b^ard with the family — Weatherberg, the 
one-legged sailor, Joescrafter, Scroggins and all — 
what a rush when meal-time comes. ''Grab quick, 
Mr. Scroggins.'' 

Mrs. Tonakson. brings up a mammoth loaf of 
bread and tries to slice it, but proves unequal to 
the task, and in an irritated manner calls on Jake 
to " cot this yere." Jake rubs his eyes and moves 
in a slow and studied manner towards his work, as 
if weighing the full measure of its dignity ; holds 
the afore-mentioned loaf with his left arm and 



164 LETTERS TO DON BROWN. 

against his breast, and with his dexter manus slabs 
off the foot slices. But there is an abundance, and 
the rough yet generous manner of serving it round 
reminds me of olden days — the feasts of the gods 
and warriors, of Thor and Odin in the oaken halls 
of Scandinavia. 

Jake is short, thick-set, black, and wears his 
raven locks in long curls upon his shoulders. — 
Laughs and chuckles, and says, " 'tis not every 
one can brag as what he has been round the world 
seven times and into 'Stantinople."" I was reading 
Lockhart's life of Sir Walter Scott. "I shouldn^t 
wonder," says he, "if I could make out most as 
much of a life as that, if I should tell all my 'ven- 
tures. I don't suppose he has ever been much 
more'n what I've been, to tell the truth, you see. 
You see I'm supposiu' he didn't go scarce any- 
where but into these yere States, anyway.'' 

Mr. Tonakson here abruptly turned the conver- 
sation with, 

"Jake, how's helection!" 

*' Don't know " — rubbing his forehead as if he 
thought he had some intellectual powers to rub up 
— " can't tell nothin' about — 'bout it. You see 
as how the dayler papers ain't hardly relierble; 
they say, at any rate, 'twill be a temperance man, 
and there'll be a sweepin' of the bottles '* 

" The country's comin' to delusion, the country's 



AMONG THE BURGHERS'. 165 

comin' to delusion! There'll be fightin' if they 
try that on, you see. Folks won't be fooled to 
givin' up their nateral born rights! There'll be 
more blood spilt than liquor wasted by them 
hypercritical spalt-hearted bass-wood ossifiers, I'll 
tell ye." 

" It's so — it's so!" they all chimed in, clear 
round the huge table. 

All heads were filled with pork and meditations 
for some minutes, when Mr. T., who had been 
across the line into Massachusetts that day, broke 
the silence this time* with a bit of news. 

"Say, Jake, you knowed Mike Crinkle, didn't 
yer? Well, he's drown-ded,'' 

" Drown-ded inter what?" replied Jake. 

"Why yere, don't ye know? S'pose he was 
drown-ded inter the uaterl somewhere out there in 
Haddam. What did ye think? He got inter a 
spree — the delirium tremens or something — and 
so got inter the mill-dam somehow*'' 

" Haddam! Wols, now that's there in a temper- 
ance State. That proves the use of your wildfire 
temperance laws. They makes more drinkin' done 

than ever he went there much as six months 

ago!" 

" It's so — it's so!'' they all again responded, and 
you may believe, dear Don, that I left my interest- 
ing host " convinced!'' 



BURNSTED AGAIN. 

Dear Dox : — From rambling over our grand 
Hudson valley, to Burnsted again, this soft June 
morning. Soft and now deepening into glowing 
radiance, — no need to wish with Tennant I had 

' * A cottage snug and neat 
Upon the top of many-fountained Ide;" 

for the Catskill lising from its canopy of mist in 
calm granieur is quite as fair as well as famous. 
The truly divine American muse has immortalized 
all this region. Here Bryant's Greea River goes 
murmuring and babbling his verses throughout its 
meandering course forever ; and Kinderhook is 
wonderfully suggestive of Katrina Van Tassel and 
pumpkin pies, and the Yankee schoolmaster, and 
Washington Irving. And Kinderhook with Martin 
Van Buren's palatial Lindenwald, and the mean 
low-roofed Dutch cot where he was born is near 
too — but what have we to do with such as him? 



BURNSTED AGAIN. 167 

0, Don, I have found the mate to Jenny Mayne, 
only it is more common. By the by, the Doctor 
has another (vulgarly understood) characteristic of 
genius which was not mentioned before — he is the 
laziest specimen of humanity extant. Perhaps, 
though, it is all for lack of ambition to spur him 
on, and perhaps he will accomplish prodigies of 
art yet if — he is obliged to ! At present, however, 
his thoughts are scattered, not by the wings of the 
press, but by the winds of heaven, and unnoticed 
more than the dead leaves of the forest, except by 
some careless rover like myself. Notwithstanding, 
dear Don, you shall have a '• word or twa " of the 
Doctor's own, and may you hand it to the fourth 
generation. Perchance that w^ould be the surest 
kind of fame after all. 

WILLIE MAYNE. g^ 

Do you know, Willie Mayne, 
Where our home used to be — 

On the wild wimpling Burnside 
Where its waves meet the sea? 

And Chathamside cottage 
By the old chestnut tree. 

Midst the maples and willows — 

• Do you know, douse Willie? 

Do you know where two schoolboys 
Loved to cull sweetest flowers, 

And twine them a garland 
For some loved ones of ours ? 



168 LETTERS TO DON BROWN. 

Do you know a rude swing 

'Neath the sycamore tree? 
Do you know whom you swung 

In the old time, Willie? 

And do you ever dream 

Of our dreams 'neath that tree? 
Life looked very fair before us, 

In that old time, Willie, 
When the bird's so gladsome chorus, 

And the river's song so free 
With our hearts beat happy measure 

To love*s grand symphony ! 

Heaven bent down very near us 

In that time, dear Willie, 
Oh, my heart sighs, all too near us! 

If such a thing could be. 
For while Jenny went the bride 

Of a lord o'er the sea, 
My Eva is an angel 

In a far — country! 

You bid fair at this rate to get your share of 
" loveliness,'' but regret it not for Montgomery 
says, "love is the truly divine inspiration of the 
bard now and forever/' 

Away with heartless rhymes. We rather bring 
An honest offering of an humble kind 

Than all the classic lies Virgil can sing 
To proud Augustus, or the flattering wind. 

Is it not strange that though I think full as 
much of the Domine, I cannot half so well re- 



BURNSTED AGAIN. 169 

member his words as the Doctor's? Here are two 
sentences, however, lest you say I cannot recollect 
any thing of a sermon. " An angel is as far above 
the greatest intellect on earth as his is above the 
smallest,'' and, " Love cannot be chained.'' 

But too much of random scribbling. I 

know this is a glorious spring day, but what of 
it ? Listening to the music of this serenest 
spring-time — to nature's many-voiced warblings 
and gushings — to the joyings and sighings and mur- 
murings of the Stena Kill wavelets as they hasten 
by, drinking in the inspiration of life and budding 
beauty *' with all things glad and free," and musing 
and dreaming (Emerson says that life is a dream 
within a dream) and '* blending in one sweet mea- 
sure the present, the past and the future of plea- 
sure'' may well benefit the sleepy worshipper of 
beauty, but not your humble servant. No, there 
is work for me to do. I have planned much for 
the next three weeks that shall tell upon my des- 
tiny. — Besides it is getting too hot here, as ardent 
summer approaches, and I shall retreat to my old 
home among the mountains. You will next hear 
from me there, " providence permitting and it does 
not rain." — Adieu. 



15 



VI. 



MANSFIELD AND MEN. 

Again within sight of Mansfield, dear Don, as 
day is just breaking over the far-away Verd Mont 
Kange. And how gallantly our good steamer Canada 
ploughs the awaking waves of old Champlain. Biit 
soho! there is Juniper Island, with its lighthouse 
and hermit cottage, while on the left are some 
smaller oases — these must be the '• Four brothers,'' 
of our childhood rambles. And how swift we go — 
we are now entering a spacious bay, and on the 
right a village, half-embowered in forest trees, 
climbs the extended slope for as much as a mile 
from the lake's base, where it seems crowned by a 
classic temple. Desperately rubbing his unwilling 
ejes, one of Saxe's " gentlemen in tights" breaks 
in upon my reverie with, 

"Do you know, Sir, what place is this?" 
From his manner it is plain he thinks I don't 
know, but I do, for we have now passed inside the 



MANSFIELD AND MEN. 171 

breakwater, and are rapidly approaching South 
Wharf — we are arrived at Burlington. 

'"Acks! 'acks!" "Accommodation!'' "Ex- 
change!" "American!" "Howard!" "Car- 
riage for the American Hotel!" is screamed on 
every side, with the most diabolical gestures. But 
there in the crowd, waiting for me, is my old 
school chum, Eichraond ! Away now with such a 
Bedlam; we had rather walk quietly up Main 
Street, beneath these old sycamores; of course we 
had, for we have so many questions to ask — so 
many things to talk about ! 

But the day has passed away like a glorious 
dream, and now, in early twilight, we are at the 
old " Place'' overlooking Court Square; and, Effie- 
Afton-wise, I lean my forehead on the window and 
gaze out upon the dim, bustling street. All sorts 
of beings, unipcds, bipeds and quadrupeds are go- 
ing past in all sorts of ways and shapes; bare- 
footed and bare-headed brats are running and 
shouting, old gray-headed fossil brats are crouch- 
ing and shuffling, negresses rolling, proud ladies 
swimming and strutting, and balloon ladies balloon- 
ing, when suddenly — 

"Good God!'' exclaims Richmond, "have all 
these animals soitJsl 

And now the Prof. R. aforesaid must needs at- 
tend Prof. Bronson's lecture, this evening, at Con- 



172 LETTERS TO DON BROWN. 

cert Hall, (so he says,) ditto I, if I can thereby 
gain any "food for thought," for Mrs. Norton 
says and I believe, 

*' That, like the spring, man's mind hath buds and 

leaves, 
Which being sunned upon put forth immortal 

bloom." 

His theme among a thousand would seem fami- 
liar, yet probably, at the same time, it is the least 
understood of them all, — viz., Man. A grand theme, 
and in the hands of a man, great and exhaustless 
as eternity itself. He commences with his lowest or 
animal being, and in a series of discourses goes gra- 
dually up, step by step, till, in his last, he consi- 
ders what man might and would be were his intel- 
lectual and spiritual powers properly developed. 
His ideas of man and nature are good, and well 
agree with those most generally received ideas of 
an all-just and supremely benevolent Creator. God 
has framed a universe of animate and inanimate 
nature, and made man lord of all. We have axio- 
matic as well as divine evidence that he has done 
this, and also that it was not a chance work, but 
one with a noble purpose and fixed and eternal 
laws,as behooved so great and omniscient an Author. 
God rules to-day and for ever by these same wise 
and determined laws, and what is the best of all, 
every human being (not a fool) can and ought to 



MANSFIELD AND MEN. 173 

know them. They are not hidden, or covered up 
like the works of a vile Secret Tribunal, but open 
as the face of day, patent as air and sunlight; they 
are written all around us in the book of nature; 
and why will we not read? Is not the reward 
great enough? Let us see — it is this: Read and 
obey these laws, and health, happiness and life shall 
be yours; refuse to read, or disobey them, and 
sickness, misery and death shall be your por- 
tion forever. Thus, in so plain a case as this, 
ignorance is a sin. Yet it cannot be that God like 
Burns' "Auld Nick," delights 

'• To skelp an' scauld poor dogs like me. 
An' hear us squeel!" 

No, this is too rediculous even to think of; still. 
He may not intercept the action of His just laws to 
favor us human beings, or else He would no longer 
be a just God. It is only ignorance (or sheer reck- 
lessness) that kills itself and then lays it to Provi- 
dence! while true wisdom says obey the laws of na- 
ture, i. e. act right, think right and feel right, and 
so be healthy and joyous as the squirrels and birds 
are that dance around you, unconscious of the cun- 
ning arts by which men sin. 

Don, I give you but a brief synopsis of the Pro- 
fessor's extended dissertation, yet if you under- 
stand, all the better. You cannot mistake his con- 



174 LETTERS TO DON BROWN. 

elusion — namely, that all sickness and disease 
which so torment each individual of frail humanity, 
is the natural result either his own sin or that of 
his immediate ancestors! It is all cause and effect 
everywhere, in the complicated, sublime and mys- 
terious as well as in the open and plain. 

For ijistance, if a man rushes into a burning 
house to seize a bag of gold, and thereupon the fire 
burns him to death, do his friends console them- 
selves by the soothing reflection that it was all the 
work of a good Providence? No, nothing of the 
kind. It would be too great an absurdity ; for in 
this case they know the cause. They knew, and 
the victim knew it was an inexorable law that^re 
hums, destroys, and therefore they frankly own 
that if any one heedlessl}^ throws himself into the 
teeth of this destroyer, he must expect to be des- 
troyed. And yet, perhaps, on that very same day, 
a Mr. Hopkins, of the same neighborhood, goes in- 
to his tight, damp cellar, filled with noxious va- 
pors from decaying vegetables, and thereby is 
brought low of a fever from which he never arises; 
and then, lo and behold ! it is all Providence now, 
just because, in their ignorance and short-sighted- 
ness, his friends do not see the cause ! He bears 
down hard upon all scrofulous pork consumei'S, as 
of course he ought ; and while he admits that evei-y 
animal, plant and thing has its oion proper use and 



MANSFIELD AND MEN. 175 

place, very confidently declares the swine out of 
place when we get them on our tables! They were 
condemned as unclean all through the long ages of 
the Old Testament, and what became of them under 
the New Dispensation? Did Christ make them 
clean and pure, fit food for his saints? The far- 
thest from it — to show his idea of their utter vile- 
ness, he made them the fit incarnation of devils, 
and then sent them raging (devils and swine alto- 
gether) into the destroying waters! A fit sanctifi- 
cation, truly! 

Was somewhat amused, though more interested, 
by his remarks on breathing, natural and artificial 
(fashionable). Almost all our hoarseness, loss of 
voice, and lung complaints generally, as well as 
half the headaches, &c., are caused by an inefficient 
way of breathing ! Therefore, Don, take timely 
warning, and though you should be superficial in 
everything else, do not be in drawing the " breath 
of life." If you would be a man, breathe deep 
and strong like a man, not like a taper-waisted, 
begirdled mummy of fashion! Breathe deep and 
strong, — that's the motto, Don, — and so shall you 
have a deep and strong hold on life. Think right, 
act right, and feel right, — that is, love the good, 
the beautiful, and true, — and so life shall be a suc- 
cess and pleasure, and you shall praise God all your 
days from the very fulness of your heart. 



176 LETTERS TO DON BROWN. 

But good-by to Burlington, for it is now to-mor- 
row, and the cars and stage-coach have whirled us 
— Richmond and I — over hills and gorges and val- 
leys, till we are by " Brown's River " again, in the 
quiet village of Underbill Center, beneath the very 
shadow of Mansfield. A pleasant summer resort 
for those that love trout fishing and mountain 
scenery, — as Dr. B. will declare and I attest, — 
yet famous for little else, save that it has for some 
time supported one of the best literary institutions 
of our State. Mountain Academy! Fortunate be- 
yond thy sisters in that that thou hast obtained 
for thy exponent not only a scholar but a Man! In- 
deed, have you not less and less faith in the mere dis- 
cipline of Greek verbs and abstruse mathematics ? 
How often do we find it proved that a student may 
graduate with the highest honors of his class, and 
yet be nothing better lor himself or the world than 
a downright fool ! Minds must be taught to reason, 
think and have an object for attainment in view, 
at the same time they are committing to memory, 
or they will prove but sad cluttered-up lumber- 
houses after all. 

But what does all this mean? The streets were 
silent but a moment ago, and now the bell has 
rung, and they are alive with subdued joy. A 
hundred blooming lads and lasses, all persuaded to 
love the paths of knowledge by the devotion of 



MANSFIELD AND MEN. 177 

the same enthusiastic soul, all moved to a noble 
emulation by the same master-spirit — say, must 
not every one enjoy such a scene as this, though it 
were cold, dull Age himself! I think so, for even 
Saxe has conquered his habit of universal punning 
long enough to exclaim, with unfeigned sentiment, 

*' 0! beautiful are little girls, 
And goodly to the sight !" 

If he had only added, and boys, it would have been 
quite apropos. 

Where now, Richmond ? Why leave oh ! 

there, coming down the street, is the teacher him- 
self ; and so you, too, have attended his school? 
(Of course you have, or you would never have 
been what you are ) Yes, we will both go and 
take him by the hand, and ask him if he recollects 
his " old scholars." 

" Very well !'' He remembers them all, he 
thinks, though he has taught so long that there is 
scarcely a country in the world but what numbers 
some of his "graduates;'' and he " thinks of them 
very often; and it is a great satisfaction,'' he says, 
"to know that, though he himself may, not do 
anything worth the while,'' his "scholars will." 

May I9th. — Went into Mr. Cilley's school yes- 
terday afternoon, where I observed that everything 



178 LETTERS TO DON EROWN. 

was done with enthusiasm, yet in the most orderly- 
manner possible, as indeed you know without being 
told; but please don't ask me any particulars as 
to the exact routine of recitations, and just what 
questions were asked, and how they were answered, 
for I will tell you frankly, I don't know! I know, 
Gradgrind and Co. would say that all that half 
day was absolutely and irrevocably lost (" to time 
and eternity''), still I can never be persuaded, 
much less compelled, to regret a season of so great 
happiness, though it were spent " drtamiiig flimsy 
dreams," and studying the countenances of vulgar 
forms of clay — made after God's own image — in- 
stead of books. And tell me truly, Don, have you 
never amused yourself, in such a place,— or at 
church, perhaps, when the good Dominie was un- 
commonly prosy, — in imagining the character of 
each one of the souls that animated the clay-dwell- 
ings around you? I love sometimes to do this, and 
also imagine their future life and destiny; and if 
I happen to know this or that one's worldly cir- 
cumstances and relations, I can tell very nearly 
what he will do; but then, there is a bright-eyed, 
intellectual-looking boy — what might he not do if 
he only had the ambition and self-assurance? 

Many old sages — that is, Female Seminary men 
and College owners — sagely and ominously croak 
about the " impropriety of having different sexes 



MANSFIELD AND MEN. 179 

attend the same school." Nonsense! Go to Rome 
with your old fogy nunneries and convents! we, if 
we are Americans, should say! Why, they might 
just as well preach about the " impropriety '' of 
the different sexes ever dwelling in the same house, 
or same world! 

'•' Can't learn anything, there's so much flirting 
and " 

Hold on! wait a moment there. Prof. S. T. D., 
while I say " our teacher never has any of that in 
his school," hence we conclude there is no need of 
ever having flirtation schools; and as for the other 
part, of course you will not try to make an old 
fellow like me — " who has been through the mill " 
— believe that any scholar was ever the worse for 
being honestly and thoroughly in love! 

But a bit of last night — while there is time. 
Richmond wanted I should go with him to visit 
a friend — a farmer of Lee River, about two 
miles from here. I went, and so henceforth 
shall reckon that night as among the most for- 
tunate that ever blessed a mortal not an Arab. 
Fortunate? Yes — and do you indeed call this a 
degenerate race ? Then I will indeed -say thrice 
fortunate that we were able, without Diogenes' 
lantern, to find so many men. Mr. P. was a 
stranger, but somehow I forgot it when he had 



180 LETTERS TO DON BROWN. 

welcomed us, even before we had been fairly 
seated within his beautiful cottage. Absolutely 
forgot it, and so, before I had considered what I 
was about, had taken sides with him against Rich- 
mond and Sir Isaac Newton's theory of gravitation. 

His boldness thrilled me. He dared think his 
own thoughts, in spite of all the great names the 
world could stagger under. 

" Why, Richmond," said he, " Sir Isaac Newton 
made a great discovery when he saw the apple fall, 
didn't he ? Great ! Wonderful ! And did he really 
discover what made the apple fall? O, no; but he 
named it — gravitation ! And then he went and 
told the world that his gravitation, or centripetal 
force, taken with another unknown force, which is 
called centrifugal, was what kept all the stars and 
planets and comets in creation from tumbling out 
of their places! And then the world clapped their 
hands and shouted, and told him, the g-eat Sir 
Isaac, that this great theory was his, and he made 
it — but, after all, it isn't true!'' 

Richmond was astonished. 

•' Well, explain a comet's eccentric orbit by it 
if you can. For illustration, take any of those 
long-haired, long-breathed affairs you choose and 
from millions of millions of miles away it comes 
down towards our sun with a terrible whew ! no 



MANSFIELD AND MEN. 181 

doubt, swifter and swifter, you say, till it gets 
clear hy the sun, when suddenly your centripetal 
power begins to work, and hauls it up with a short 
rope until it gets round to the proper place, when 
— get out of the way! the rope breaks, and away 
goes the fiery beast again for forty thousand 
ages !" 

Here we had some warm maple sugar on ice, 
and another discussion ; but I have arrived at the 
bottom of my last sheet — therefore, " thank God 
and take courage." 



16 



YIL 



UNDERHILL LAKE. 



Situated between rugged hills, and hidden by 
wild, and almost impassable forests, there is many 
a shaded grot, many a flowery vale that lists to 
the music of the dancing rills, many a grandeur 
scene, many an unexplored cavern deep below the 
solid earth, many a rushing waterfall, many 
a gemmed and mirrored lake, that never met the 
curious traveler's gaze, within the precincts of the 
ever mythic and mysterious Underbill. 

From wandering and musing on the wonderful of 
every clime, and studying every phenomena of art 
and nature — from roving over the horizontal Lla- 
nos of the majestic Orinoco, where the eye is lost 
as on an isleless ocean, and by the side of impenetra- 
ble forests, where palms, laden with the most pre- 
cious fruits, shoot up three hundred feet towards 
heaven, and over the cloud-capped mountains of 
Asia, and the furtherest Southern isles, and expect- 
ing so little in this unfamed part of the universe, 



UNDERHILL LAKE. 183 

you can imagine our astonishment at the sight 
which now met our eyes. 

It was near night of a cloudy day, that your 
friends, Butler, Dixon, Kingsbury, Xerxes Manser 
and myself approached this fairy Underhill Lake. 
The first thing that attracted my attention was a 
remarkably unparalelled exuberance of saw-logs, 
called in the native idiom, rafters, or spruce. 
Passing on, we soon saw the native maids, ten or 
a dozen in a clump, digging with rude pocket 
knives for a kind of resinous gum, which obtrudes 
in great quantities from the bark of this species 
of tree — then turning past these, we caught a 
glimpse of the fairy loch itself, — what dazzling 
beauty! 

My friend Butler gazed witli unspeakable delight, 
the poetic raptured Kingsbury seized his magic 
pen, and on a rough-barked fallen ash, began tra- 
cing the fair "thoughts that flow in jEolian mur- 
murs upon the moonlit memories of fleeting life!'' 
Dixon said he would take its prospective altitude 
from the level of the ocean by the setting sun; and 
Xerxes Manser thought he saw gold in its crystal 
depths, an(^ gazing in rapture for a moment, 
plunged to the bottom. 

Alexander Kingsbury was still tracing the fairy 
words that charm. I looked over his shoulder and 
read these ever to be memorable picturings of the 



184 LETTERS TO DON BROWN. 

most beautiful, and at the same time most neglect- 
ed corner of creation! 

*' But, oh ! this moment my spirit is soaring 
amidst the stars, contemplating the vast and im- 
measurable expanse of creation. Tlie hallowed in- 
fluences and blessed hallucinations that are dis- 
played amongst eternal beings, born and bred 
opake with cerulian splendor bespeak to me of 
disintegrated essence of double distilled moon- 
shine!" 

Here, for the first time, I noticed the impassion- 
ed Wilhelm Richmond. He vyas standing on the 
shore, his eyes suffused with tears! He was not 
writing, for he had no paper nor anything where- 
with to write; still he could not resist scribbling 
with a stick on the sand, and muttering so loud 
that I caught distinctly the following words : — 

" I'm deeply in love, as you've heard me say, 
And falling deeper and deeper, as life wears 

away; 
And unless I am careful, mind what I'm about, 
I'll fall in so deep, that I'll never get out!'' 

He was saying this, and much more that I can- 
not now recollect, as though he was all alone in the 
unisrerse, and he said it so loud that Dixon, who 
was in the boat measuring the altitude of the lake 
from the surrounding hills, heard every word of it, 



UNDERIIILL LAKE. 185 

and he was so convulsed with laughter that he 
dropped his quadrant and barometer on the instant, 
into the lake, and the good Xerxes Manser being 
directly beneath, these instruments came rapping 
about his ears in an unheard of manner. 

The case was this. The aforesaid Xerxes Man- 
ser, with golden visions, had plunged to the bottom. 
The band of nymphs and fairies, that watched this 
lake — their home — both pitying and loving the 
heroic youth, entranced him in their shining depths. 
Then fairy forms bore shining goblets of liquid 
gold. Then with magic power they had thought to 
wash him in an immaculate and invulnerable coat- 
ing of the purest metal. But in the very act, 
down came the heavy iron instruments of Dixon 
and roused our friend, Xerxes Manser, from his 
syren sleep. And hence the auriferous liquid has 
suffused nothing but his brovv^s and hair. And 
hence it appears, moreover, that nothing but his 
shinhig locks are golden to this very day. 

We, that is all us authors of the Underbill liter- 
ary society, and the ever-to-be- famous literary pa- 
pers, lament the prevalent darkness on all points 
of light in this benighted and frozen world. But 
the most of all do we lament that Alexander 
Kingsbury did not finish his just-about-to-be-re- 
nowned history of Underbill Lake — as now, alas J 
it can never be finished at all. For by some en> 



186 LETTERS TO DON BROWN. 

chantraent, which neither Bostwick nor Burdick 
have ever been able to explain during all their 
studies, the moss-coverod bank, fragrant with 
birch and rich-foliaged maples and willows, was 
changed into black spruce saw logs — the angel- 
guarded lake, into a dark muddy pond — this charm- 
ing cascade into a rough stone dam — the dissolving, 
sky-ascending mists into a rough, clacking saw- 
mill, and the polished scholar, A. Kingsbury himself, 
into a rough Yankee farmer. 



Yiir. 



OLD-TIME CLtMBINGS: 

Dear Don : — I was born on the top of a mountain, 
and have been climbing ever since; but between 
me and the heavens it seems there is a long way 
yet. I'll tell you what it is, — if Bayard Taylor 
has not told you already, — our mountains are not 
only steep but slippery, as if they had been greased 
for a universal pancake. Do you remember, nof 
the first time that you ever looked at all, but the 
first time you ever looked out-doors? 

"Ah, well I now remember, it was in the bleak 
December," when I (the same yet not the same) 
first looked out into the Eden for which I was 
created; and hence the first idea that was im- 
pressed upon my mind concerning the out-door 
world was " slippery.'' I knew no more of ice 
than Kamehameha III., but soon tumbled down 
the mountain and came near breaking my neck. I 
did not understand it then; it was the greatest 
wonder why I did not tumble back again; but. 



188 LETTERS TO DON BROWN. 

alack-a-day! have learned enough, to my sorrow, 
that it is easier going down than up — vastly. 

This is a slippery world; it is well that all tra- 
velers should take heed, especially if they are 
climbing. Yet if one would enjoy life, and make 
his journey like a journey to Paradise or Italy, he 
must cease climbing. 

I said I had been climbing ever since I was born; 
I have, but somehow or other, every little while 
my feet would give way as though they were based 
upon a live avalanche, and down would go the rash 
aspirer. Unlucky lubber, the wise world says; 
yet looking now eagerly into the past, these same 
tumbles are the brightest spots in memory. Tum- 
bling from the great beam in the old barn, thirty 
feet, all over into new hay, like otters tumbling 
into crystal waves, tumbling in snow-bankSj school- 
boys tumbling or sliding (as it happened) one over 
another, on the glazed crust of the mountain, or 
Cook's hill, tumbling through the brush for gum 
or partridges! — can Fame's cold, glittering tem- 
ples and empty pantries be thought of in connec- 
tion with these ? 

And not only the pleasure, but the utility. A 
fall is the only thing that will bring a dreamer to 
his senses. And, finally, I am inclined to think 
that every mortal in creation would persuade him- 
self he was a god, if he did not sometimes stub his 
toe. • 



OLD-TIME CLIMBINGS. 189 

Climbing, climbing continually forward, jet all 
the time looking mournfully into the past — this is 
life. That cottage just beyond this rambhng 
brook valley was my boyhood home. Those moun- 
tains that push their rugged, rocky forms even now 
against the skies, was my playground. And this 
sky-topped hill on which I now stand, with its 
shaded, mossy knolls, and towering, spreading 
\voods, was especially my home — my boyhood 
study. Dear old times! Supposing we go back 
even to those good "old times'' for a starting- 
place, and look back from there iato the past, 
what then? 

Here is a bit of a journal written on this same 
spot fifty years ago. 

''May I6th. — Another week of toil is gone, an- 
other week of life begun. But a few hours ago 
I was in my room, at my boarding-place ; but 
now, as the sun is hastening away beyond the 
mountains, I find myself among the rocks and 
hills and dells of my own forest home. This is 
the most delightful sylvan retreat in all the world, 
I knov/ it must be. Here, in the time that is novv 
long gone, I was wont to play with old schoolmates. 
And since that time how many glorious days I'v^e 
spent with books beneath these ancient, shades. 
And here, in this thick-topped maple, by the rude 
desk on the swinging boughs, away from the sight of 



190 LETTERS TO DON BROWN. 

all, how many foolish rhymes I've wrought. I can 
but think of other days; what a change has come 
over the world — or me. Here I lived and played 
and loved as children do, all careless then and 
dreamy now. The while how much oflener I met 
these silent shades alone; how the histories of the 
wise and good thrilled my young being ! those 
brave heroic souls of all past times, who, with 
God-like thoughts and almost superhuman power, 
threw themselves into the contest and battled for 
truth and right. And how alone I thought and 
mused in twilight hour and night until I wished 
that I, too, had lived in other times, when cham- 
pions were needed for Truth and Right. Then 
could not I, too, have dared a part where a few 
noble souls 

'*'Were tending 

With a faith sublime, 
Helping angels downward bending 

Through the mists of time!' " 

And thus it is always the same — climbing forward, 
spurning the miserable present, yet mourning that 
very past which a few sun's ago was the miserable 
present. 

Climbing for fame or folly, gold or glitter, dia- 
monds or dust; climbing, climbing through almost 
a century of life, yet hardly ever higher than upon 



OLD-TIME CLIMBINGS. 191 

the June midnight when Willie Mayne and I had 
stormed the towers of 

MANSFIELD. 

It was midnight by the shadows 

That o'er Brown's wild fountains lie, 

As we climbed the Mansfield mountains 
Where they throne the deepest sky. 

0, the rapture of that moment, 

When we crowned the rock-built fane, 

And looked down upon the lifeless 
Shores and waves of Lake Champlain. 

We the only lords in being — 

But the next thought brought refrain, 

For our journey lay before us ; 
Should we ever meet again? 

Then the past came up before us, 

All the varied scenes of years. 
All our boyish sports together, 

All our frolics, all our tears, — 

All our Burnside, moonlight ranLbles 
Where the Brown's wild waters fly, 

All our bright plans for the future. 
Friendships that could never die ! 

— We parted when the morrow 

First lit up thy waves, Champlain ; 

For life's journey lay belore us, 
And we never met again! 



192 LETTERS TO DON BROWN. 

Attg, 20ih. — Vivifying and eneheering in the 
highest degree, were the kindly words received 
from that well-known nom de^ plume, "D. B." If 
in reply I were to give you an idea of the present 
scene around me, I would blot "smoke.'' If you 
were by my side I should gasp " smoke.'' If this 
smoky thought needed any illustration, why then 
— I should smoke. 

But — to be sober-like as an aged boy should (I 
feel like one) — the earth is all on fire; the air for 
miles around is completely /ogge^/ with smoke, and 
the higher grass and grain-fields are finally parched 
into staring deserts. Karl says that if he were 
a Millerite he would go to preaching instanter. 
Certainly his proposition of 

Dies irse, dies ilia 
Solvit sseclum in favilla 

would have the benefit of demonstration, for the 
very hills, though rock-ribbed and ancient as the 
sun, have nevertheless been burning for a num- 
ber of long weeks, and very manifestly to all mor- 
tal beholders, will never go out till — it rains. 

I suppose you, in your unimpeachable single- 
blessedness, have often enjoyed regular satyr ram- 
bles and piscatorial rustications in the spring-time, 
with nothing but birds and rivulets to guide and 
trouts to bite you. But the trouts — alas, now, for 



OLD-TIME CLIMBINGS. 193 

you, poor little fishes! Your aforetime translucent, 
wavy habitations have been ruthlessly seized by 
fierce fire-craggy clouds and borne to distant climes, 
and you, all homeless and desolate, are floundering 
where — in the sand or sty above? 

We have had a bear-hunl. A number of sheep 
have been killed in the neighborhood, lately, and 
this morning, at nine o'clock, a black bear was 
seen to cross the road near the school-house, and 
enter Cook's woods. Uprose the serried ranks as 
if by magic. Forth came the sturdy yeomen with 
their sons and sons' sons trailing after, and soon 
the piece of wood containing a hundred acres was 
• environed by men and boys, and French fusees, and 
rusty revolutionaries. And now they had cer- 
tainly got him; they had fenced him in. '* There 
he goes, there he goes!" exclaimed fifty voices at 
once, if a bird whistled or a twig stirred. And on 
they pushed slowly, steadily tovrards the center — 
they would be sure to have him at last. And 
slowly, steadily onward pushed that band of he- 
roes, till hungry and tired and thirsty, they all 
met in the brush at sundown; but the bear had 
vanished; he was "not at home!'' 



17 



]X, 



MOUNTAINEERING. 

My Dear Don: — Did you and your friend Snobs 
ever climb Mansfield mountain by moonlight? If you 
have (even by sunlight, I was going to say) you 
are more fortunate than the ordinary race of mor- 
tals, that is, scholars. But Snobs says, " Tu 
patulse recubans sub tegmine fagi," which being 
translated into good Yankee means, "you didn't 

climb anyhow!" Indeed, then you lost much 

labor. You have lost much both of Celestial and 
Underbill scenery, plus the extasized, poetized, 
never-tiring, night-and-cloud scenery — which by 
the way is no small item in the pleasurables of the 
excursion. 

But to impress more forcibly on your mind this 
climbing business — if neither your friend, J. Snobs 
nor your honorable self has been to the top of this 
Evergreen (if it was not for the snow) Mountain, 
I should advise you to make your ascent by moon- 



MOUNTAINEERING. 195 

light, and Jack Snobs Esq. by sunlight, if he 
knows when that is. Furthermore and for many- 
reasons, I should advise you to go alone. First, 
because you would not go with any one. To ex- 
plain — you say you will not be with any but 
kindred spirits, and again that you believe Hemans, 
who declares " kindred spirits fiw and by still 
conflicting powers forbidden here to meet," — you 
believe her. Next you claim some of the young 
American spirit. You would not follow the old 
track — do as all the world have done for forty 
thousand ages. Your Majores have always gone 
united in dearly loved bands, or patriarchal com- 
panies of seventeen and over; hence you should 
go alone. But you are inclined to be a little like 
Ledyard or — some one else — and therefore should 
be very guarded in choosing the day. Ledyard's 
mountain adventure was on the frostiest day in 
mid-winter, and that of eome one else about the 
thirtieth day of smiimer; accordingly yours should 
be about the first day of November Finally as 
Ledyard was a school -boy and some one else a 
dignified grandfather of forty-nine, you should go 
up the same day you are married. 

Yes, Don, this is the chosen day for your ascent, 
pointed out by the unerring stars that watch over 
your destiny. Go — and hence what more of Sibe- 
rian apples as large as beans and bottomless Bai- 



196 LETTERS TO DON BROWN. 

kals; and the region where Spark's rivers " dis- 
embouge themselves"' into the sea, and love-sick 
Leanders and ice-house Filibusters. — Let them 
all go beyond the north where they belong — 
you are the representative of the purity and refine- 
ment of the present age; the exponent of modern- 
ism — the Roscius of Anglici.-m ! 

Apropos then you will be the happiest man (de- 
lecticimus ac aaiantisimus in the universus rerum!) 
and to give vent to your joy you will shout till all 
the echoing spirits of the mountains are frightened; 
and forsooth as you wander the untrodden, unex- 
plored forests of Underbill Center, how your mind 
will expand and soar from bears and chipmucks to 
the lost pleiad'js hurled from their sphere. 

" Even as the dev/-drop from the myrtle spray 
Swept by the winds av/ay.'' 

Dear Don, you will pardon me this once; per- 
haps I am getting too discursive. They say that 
woiks on natural science should be concentrated 
— I will concentrate. — Yet I need not repeat. You 
understand that I have studied both your character 
and that of the mountain, and now write in this 
common way just what I think of each, and how 
you should meet. 

Snobs should accompany a friend, if he is so 
favored among his brother cosmopolites as to have 
one. 



MOUNTAINEERING. 197 

Thus far for such as you and he. If I were to 
counsel others of a different nature, my words 
would be entirely different. Thus I myself can 
never do what I ara told to do, however much I try. 
Therefore I alv/ays try to belike some one else, 
and fhus always know that I shall be original in 
the conclusion. For instance, I tried in this Excur- 
sion to go (like the rest) in a four-wheeled carriage, 
but one wheel broke and left me with only three. 
I tried like Manser to be uncertain about going, and 
like Dixon, after we left our teams, to wait for the 
ladies and rest content ; but still kept pushing on 
and found myself the first one on the summit. I 
tried to whistle like an engine, but made a noise 
more like an original kind of woodchuck. Tried 
like Mr. Byiiigton to go down at four o'clock, but 
like a fool staid all night; like Tyler to meet with 
an adventure, and met with — two hedgehogs. 

Mansfield, so called from its contour resemblance 
to the face of humanity, is the highest land in Ver- 
mont, and a little more than half as high as the 
cap-stone of New England, Mount Washington. 
For all our early start tlie clouds were up before 
•as, and looked frowningly down, you may imagine, 
as we toiled our weary way beneath; but they 
scattered before the fiercer sunbeams, and left each 
towering crag and " thunder-splintered pinnacle '' 
as grand, and lone, and terribly sublime as ever. 



398 LETTJ-RS TO DON BE OWN. 

We (Mary, Katy and I) arrived on the South Peak 
or forehead about ten, a.m. The day was fine and 
prospect ^ood. Mary shouted and clapped her 
hands for very joy — who would not if he but 
gave utterance to his thoughts in natural lan- 
guage? On the north-east woody hills banked 
upon hills loomed far away to the hidden sources of 
the Connecticut. On the south-east small clear- 
ings were visible — mere gardens in the wilderness, 
and, glittering in the sun, the largest one, the tiny 
village of Stowe. Sleeping in listless beauty in 
the west, with its fair young isles kissing the bright 
waves, and drinking in the sunbeams, lay the old 
Champlain, and beyond, as if wedged between its 
waters and the deep sky, and drowned in misty 
beauty, peered the Essex Mountains of New York. 
And nearer to our feet, away this side of these, 
leaning up against the beetling cliffs with rugged, 
careless ease was our old school-home, the (about- 
to-be) classic Underbill, — and Westford, and that 
paradise of Felicity, Cambridge-borough, and Fair- 
fax, and Milton, and seven more. Stephensville, 
couiposed partly of "houses and all the rest barns," 
where they have a "grist mill to make shingles,* 
and a peck measure factory, is not thought of in 
the above computation. Would that it had been, 
and O'Flannigan-Irishville too, if so it might have 
happened that we had not built our house in the 
Flannigan style of architecture. 



MOUNTAINEERING. 199 

We — used in the singular number by the authority 
of Bailey and Stumper — were very sorry to leave 
behind the weary ladies, the Claras, and Louisas, 
and Nellie-Ellas, but we changed our minds, we 
were glad now. Till now we thought the heaven- 
born, world-praised poets had common sense — but 
we yield. 

" woman! in our hours of ease 
Uncertain, coy and hard to please, 
Whfn pain and anguish wring the brow, 
A ministering angel thou." 

What nonsense! They (the ladies, the modern 
women) staid while nature smiled, but when the 
day waned past, and darkness and spectral shades 
came hovering around, they left us alone in the 
wilderness ! 

Mansfield's forehead is not very intellectual— 
his chin, like that of many others, being the high- 
est. He has a regular cave of a mouth, but terri- 
bly twisted, ^nd opens far down on the north-east 
side, yawning and awful, with a breath that strikes 
a blioht like that of angry winter. A hundred 
feet overhead trembles a vast rock of tons weight, 
which seems each moment as if just ready to fall; 
yet it has probably hung there for thousands of 
years. We go about three rods on an antedeluvian 
bank of ice and snow, and arrive at the well, or 
more properly, throat. We throw in stones; they 
go down, and down, and down — whack, whack, 



200 LETTERS TO DON BROWN. 

whack for some time, and then splash in deep 
waters. 

It seems strange that this has never been ex- 
plored, though probably the threatening rocks and 
stone above have deterred adventurers. 

The nose is not Roman, as H. observed, but a 
right Yankee sneezer three hundred feet high. 
Our camp was at the foot of this, in right Indian 
style — rocks on three sides, boughs under and over 
us, with a huge spruce fire in the cornef. 

Twelve of us staid all night. " What a glorious 
sunset," exclaimed Willie with gravity enough for 
a poet. We gazed, but no one answered him — all 
seemed enchanted. I will tell you what, Don, it 
was worth an age of toil and heart-sickness and 
wo to behold just once that changing, deepening, 
glowing twilight heaven. 

That night. Well, I suppose I could blot a 
huge, quarto with the impressions of that one 
night, but I will not, I'll compassionate you this 
time. 

We saw the sun rise — beautiful . May your suns 
ever rise in joy and brightness. And now " fare- 
well, auld birkie! May your friends aye love, 
your foes aye fear you,'' and 

" Heaven spare you long to kiss the breath 
O' many flowery sunnmers!" 



X, 



A WHITE MOUNTAIN SHOWER. 

Dear Don: — Your inspired noble letter should 
have been sooner answered; yet do not for this 
blot me forever from your book. "Judge not that 
ye be not judged/' 

Thus the sublime sentence ran 
From the high to the erring low-, 
From the Son of God to man. 
We condemn, and are condemned again in turn 
and what does it amount to? It is very easy for 
us, grovelling in the dust, to sneer and point the 
finger of scorn at the great and famed in literature 
and art, and exclaim, — 

" There, that proves that, for all his greatness, 
he has not common sense!'' 

As Spink said to me one day, — " the great rev- 
ertnd Divines are full as apt as any of us to be 
weak here," pointing to his forehead. But a truce 
to gossip, save only that part which goes to show 
that I could not have written sooner though the 



202 LETTERS TO DON BROWN. 

gods Trom high Olympus commanded! Reason — 
we have had another excursion. 

For, carefully considering the whole matter, it 
was found necessary both to health and happiness 
that I s'.ould climb at least another mountain. And 
my young friend Eichmond, too, although he was 
attending school, must needs be excused — and 
Church, when did he ever ask for anything ? So 
here we were, three and a guide, a free wild troupe 
as fairly set for a regular White Mountain 
tramp, as ever the honest Christopher was for a 
" flight to the lakes.*' I liked the notion, i^or I 
thought it would prove a timely diversion, you 
know; Richmond said it would pay, and Church 
did not care where in creation we did fly to, if we 
only had a time — and so we flitted. 

The shades went back from the rising sun, and 
the prophetic cocks, from every barn-yard fence on 
our route, crew us a fair day, till we reached the 
great and high plantation of Mr, Winchester. — 
This, aside from other consideration?, was a very 
convenient point for preparation. 7^o help the 
matter they had anticipated our arrival, and 
therefore we were not long in packing what good 
and extra clothing Church said we should need, (he 
had been up before) and by half past nine we were 
fairly on our way, — eight miles a-foot, provisions 
for two days and a night, buffalo overcoats 
and all. 



A WHITE MOUNTAIN SHOWER. 203 

'* I wish they had graded it,'' said Richmond. 

*• I wish they had lighted it,'' said Church. 

We had now entered the primeval woods (spruce 
and hemlock) which veiled our path in shades al- 
mos't as deep as night. We went up and up, by a 
brooklet that grew smaller and smaller as it tum- 
bled along its rocky bed; still the atmosphere grew 
darker and darker for as much as two long miles. 
Only that the narrow path had obviously been 
trod oftentimes before by heavier feet than fair- 
ies sport, it would have seemed like some fabled 
realm of spirits — of oblivion and night. 

Suddenly we came upon a clearing. As soon as 
we were out of the thicket, it was plain enough 
what had caused the unnatural darkness. Great 
black clouds were reaching up from the deep night 
of the western horizon with the velocity of a whirl- 
wind. It was threateningly sublime. On and on 
they came with the swift grandeur of the winds of 
heaven, and the full plenitude of an ocean tide, 
till the tall mountains on the east were lost in their 
murky folds. Hawks screamed from their dizzy 
heights and the swallows swooped down as if weighed- 
irresistibly to the earth. Every moment we expec- 
ted a deluge would come down, and we were about 
three miles from any human habitation; what 
should we do? We looked at each other in dis- 
may. 



204 LETTERS TO DON BROWN, 

But Church, who had been lagging behind, as if 
careless whether he advanced or staid, now 
sprang forward with all his accustomed agility. — 
" Come on, boys," he shouted, " follow me! I'll 
give you a lead!" And away we scrambled, 
" through brake and through briar " — over log- 
heaps and stones, brush and elders; cur new 
guide, in spite of us, keeping a number of 
rods ahead. Richmond, who had the overcoats, tvas 
puffing, and the young Irish guide was screaming 
like a steam-engine clear behind all — we were all 
well-nigh exhausted, and the big drops began to 
thicken down, when a shelter appeared. We did 
not stop for outside observations, but with a rush 
followed our leader. I only heard " a log-heap with 
a door in it,'' and we all came to a stand with 
" where are we?'' 

It was a curious retreat, surely; and we were 
glad enough, you may imagine, to have found any. 
Such a habitation would do well enough for a rob- 
ber, or Robin Hood, but who in this age and coun- 
try would live in such a place ? 

The rain came down in torrents. We could hear 
it splashing on the roof and windows, and the 
clouds were still hovering around with increasing 
blackness ; very likely we should have to live here 
for awhile, whoever had done so before, and we 
looked around to see what were the accommoda^ 
tions. 



A WHITE MOUNTAIN SHOWER, 205 

A building some twenty or thirty feet long, with a 
maple log floor and huge stone fire-place on the op- 
posite side, a small hay-loft on our right, (that was 
to be our bed) an old table with ash saplings for 
legs : further down on the right, beyond the hay-loft, 
was what seemed once to have been a door- way to 
a small additional wing, " That was Huntley's 
shingle shop," said Church, as he scraped up an 
armful of the dry spruce shavings. " We'll have 
an illumination." 

The fire steamed and smoked, and finally blazed 
like a volcano up the Cyclopean chimney. Here, 
perhaps some young and fertile genius (like you, 
Don,) would have wrought up some immortal verse 
to have been hymned through all the future ages : — 

*' Of Prometheus who, undaunted. 

On Olympus' shining bastions 

His audacious foot he planted." 

But only a careless unnamed thought for one like 
myself. 

Richmond looked out into the storm and was 
troubled, "We shall have to stay here all night,'* 
he said, and he drew down his face in true medical 
style. , 

" And don't you really wish you were freezing to 

death, on the peak?" replied Church. " We had 

enough to weather when all was right and sky-blue 

fair. We had been on the top of the mountain all 
18 



206 LETTERS TO DON BROWN. 

day, and had our bough camp fixed there by the 
spring — all arranged in ship-shape and Bristol fash- 
ion, with the buffalo-skins and coats for a bed — the 
pantry in one corner and fire in the other, when 
Tucker and I thought we would go up to the 
peak again, to build a fire and see what we could 
find. 

*' So we left our company, and went up about 
two miles — just before sunset, and built a great 
pile of spruce boughs fifteen or twenty feet high, 
and didn't it flame? It might have been seen fifty 
miles if it had only been dark enough; but you see 
the sun had not been down long enough. So I told 
Tucker to stay with me and we'd build a high one 
and we would have a time and make a blaze after 
dark. Phil said he would, and we'd surprise the 
natives, but the first I knew he was twenty rods off 
chasing a hedgehog, and screaming and yelling 
like a loon. Away he went tumbling along down 
the rocks just as the hedger did, shouting and 
thowing stones, and I after him. But pretty soon 
we came to a jumping off place — I should think it 
was two hundred feet right square down, so Phil 
Tucker held up. 

" ' The hedger may go it Sam Patch to the devil; 
I won't,' said Phil. 

"As it had begun to grow pitch dark, we 
thought we would go back before it got to be so 



A WHITE MOUNTAIN SHOWER. 207 

black we couldn't; and 'twas so steep and rough 
where we had just tumbled down, we concluded to 
go back round by the " 

" I'll make my everlasting fortune forever,'' 
broke in Richmond, who had been searching and 
ransacking every corner of the hut, " I'll tell you 
what, the White Mountains! home of the muses, 
hurra!'' he continued, pulling out piece after piece 
of original manuscript — from the chinks in the logs 
— which, if he is a second Chatterton, he will 
probably publish, and then blow out his brains„ 

Two days and a night in a shower so that we 
could not even once see the mountains — we have 
had enough of the Granite State — I will go home 
to my Green Mountains, melior if not excelsior ! 



XI. 



OCTOBER AT BURLINGTON. 

It is growing cold. Ah! well-a-day, 

The world is freezing, up this way ! 

The sun is lost! Like a huge bowl of lead 

The sky is lowering overhead ; 

The winds go moaning with every breath, 

And not a leaf falls but whispers "death!" 

Ah, well-a-day ! So very sober 

Are grown thy lonesome days, October, 

No wonder, you'll say, but ah! well-a-day, 

You cannot e'en dream how cold, 'tis this way ! 

The clouds are weeping overhead, 

And the winds chanting dirges for all things dead; 

I'm sure you can't think — say, dear Don, 

Did ever you live at Burlington ? 

This dark wild town where A. B.s grow, 



OCTOBEH AT BURLINGTON. 209 

And weep love-tears to tbe " Sems '' below, 
While the Champlain sobs so sad below. 
And *' Freshmen '' raise such a din of woe, 
As the Onion bears on its burden of woe — 
Alack-a-day! No wonder they're sober, 
These lonesome days of this lonesome October ! 

And yet I live ! and Time drives his dray 
At his usual pace, so the wise " Owis " say; 
And I live on the street of Pearls, they say — 
(Yet I never saw any there till to-day — 
But this is not sad nor apropos.) 
Well, in the morning I rise, of course, 
And sit by my fire till the winds are hoarse; 
Then walk out to see if the snow 
Has covered up everything *' down below,'' 
And the dirge-chanting Champlain 

Is able to hold 
The tears which all night 

From the "Brick Mill" have rolled — 
No wonder I look most sadly sober 
Walking these sad streets this saddest October, 

Musing and mourning but stop, a ray! 

Some lantern is certainly coming this way; 
A light beams out from Locust street; 
I can almost see the path that my feet 
Are treading in the pathless snow, 



210 LETTERS TO DON BROWN. 

And brighter yet the streets " do glow;*' 
0, wonderful! Can it be the sun 
Again shines on benighted, sad Burlington? 
And brighter still! ! the sun never shone — 
So radiant with joy for this world alone; 
And a rustling is heard 

Like an angel's gown; 
Can it be that heaven 
Is coming to town ? 
Not coming, but come. It is already here, 

These, I know, must be smiles 
Of the angels dear; 

They wept that the town 
Should e'er be forlorner; 
Dear sisters of Wooster's ! 
(They are turning the corner;) 
They could not bear that so bitter blight 
Should descend all for lack of a little light ; 
That such woeful winter, 

! sad town, should curse ye, 
And so they are out 

On their mission of mercy. 

They have put back their bonnets, 

And lit up their eyes 
With fire which Eve brought 

From lost Paradise ; 



OCTOBER AT BURLINGTON. 211 

They have taken their balloons and feathers and 

wings, 
And flounces and ballast and ear-rings and rings, 
And all sails and top-sails and pretty bright thing* 
To catch the first son — ny breeze that up-springs; — 
And what billows of satin — -just see what a sea 

now 
Is rolling up Pearl street, right on towards me 

now — 
I am lost, drowned, destroyed ! Gods ! where 

shall I flee now ? — 
I have rambled each land, 
And sung songs to each ocean 
That e'er Madam Roe or Wilson has thought of; 
But my dearly-loved harp 

Must be hung on the willows. 
If I meet in Pearl street 

These deep-heaving billows — 
I'll be smashed all — but stop, Don, 
The danger is over; 
With a wavering motion 
Down Church street they brought off, 

As harmless as pillows; 
And they swim along 
Like the spirit of song 

Imbreathed from the lips of some passionate lover — 
So this sad blight, 0! sad town. 
Shall never more curse ye, 



212 LETTERS TO DON BROWN. 

For the sisters are out 
On their mission of mercy. 

There go the light angels. And still smiling on 

me! 
They don't know me ! Yet they're smiling. Per- 
haps — can it be 
We have e'er met before? Perhaps on life's sea, 
Somewhere and sometime ere this dark cloudy 

weather, 
We have met, laughed and sported like hum-birds 

together ; 
Met, sported and — parted, 

And e'er since have been roaming, 
You in some fairy sun-land, 

I 'neath this black gloaming. 
Till the present. Or, perchance, long before. 
Ere the sun found a throne or the sea found a 

floor. 
We have somehow met somewhere (when we were 

young spirits) 
Ere this low world was planned which mankind in- 
herits — 
Met in the realms of space, away 
Where the roguish comets are racing to-day — 
Met in the fields of ether blue, — 
Aye, there ere a star had dared spangle through 



OCTOBER AT BURLINGTON. 213 

Those azure curtains none but God could look 

through, 
You met me and I met you! 
And though since then all ages have crossed 
Our paths, till Time himself is grown gray. 
And all thoughts of each other have long passed 
away, 
Yet the feeling is certainly not all lost— 
And the smilling, dear sisters love the lonely old 
man, 
Who (they know) weeps for mortals 
All the tears that he can! 
So I pray, ! glad town, 

Sin may never more curse ye, 
For the angels are out 

On their mission of mercy ! 



XIL 



DECEMBER AT UNDERBILL. 

Sadder and sadder the sad hours grow, 

Fiercer and fiercer the frost-wii;ds blow, 

Deeper and deeper the dark nights flow 

Over the pulseless world below; 

And pallid spectres do ever go 

Through the shades, singing wild songs of woe, 

As they sow; 

And their pitiless laughter is oft heard — ah, wo! 

And all through the long nights they hasten, we 

know, 
To scatter their storm-seed of hail and snow! 

And still nights grow longer and deeper starred, 
And longer old Mansfield's shadows are cast; 

Later and later the sun is barred. 

Till morning's smiles are all o'ercast; 

And then, in a veil of frost and hail — 
Say, dear Don, must it not be drear 

To watch the very sun grow pale, 



DECEMBER AT UNDERHI^L. 215 

And, Sorrow, hear 
No songs but dirges for the dead year, 
And see no flowers but through death's veil! 



No, oh! no, dear Don. Though it may seem queer. 

To you, nestling there midst orange bowers, 
These cold dark days are not at all drear, 

Nor night's long hours. 
No, our farmers do never weep at all 
At the wailing lays of the dying fall. 

Nor that Winter's frowns in dismal showers 
Are o'er them cast; 

To our farmer ears what says the blast ? 
Nothing sdd at all. Not at all drear; 

Though to Southern ear 

It might whistle queer 
Such songs as would make all tingle to hear, 
Yet what care the sons of old Underbill? 
To them Winter's form is not strange nor drear, 
For he sleeps in their mountain caves all the year. 
So the jolly farmer but laughs to know 
The winds are at play with the drifting snow, 
And so he does nothing at all but laugh, 
As he fans from the golden grain the chaff, 

At the dirges so drear 

For the old dead year. 



216 LETTERS TO DON BROWN, 

Does nothing but laugh as he blows the chaff, 

Does nothing but laugh as the shadows rise. 
Does nothing but laugh as the shadows fall, 

Does nothing but laugh at the stars in the skies. 
And tell long stories of war withal. — 
How wild hunters ambushed beneath wild trees — 

All of savage men and wildernesses, 
Until each gaping youngstt r sees 

Hung in the dark, the scalp's red tresses. 
And on the earth, dark gory seas; 

And our old-thoughted grandam blesses 
Her soul, and mine, that, thanks! at last. 
Those dreary, cruel days are past. 
Does nothing but laugh as the hours fly fast. 

Unless it be to talk of the times 
And the timely tension of truth, called nev«s. 

Of South worth's stories and Richmond's rhymes; 
And how old Frank Pierce had the blues 
When he told his soldiers to " push on the battle. 
For he was sick'' — (of the cannon's rattle?); 
Unless to pile wood on the climbing fire, 
And crack jokes and nuts as the flames climb 

higher ; 
Unless it be to pass hugest bowls 

Of luscious apples and sparkling cider, 
And wing bravest songs from bravest souls, 

That each night grow braver and deeper and 
wider, 



DECEMBER AT UNDERBILL. 217 

As the nights grow darker and snows more deep, 
Does nothing at all but laugh and — sleep! 

And so, Don, why should I 
Do nothing but weep? 
no, dear Don, my blithesome lad, 
Though the world does weep, I'm not oft sad, 

Though Time, with his sythe. 
Draws nearer and nearer 
As the wintry winds whistle drearer and drearer, 

Why my laughing fire 
But grows dearer and dearer ; 
And so, (after walking abroad to see 
How the snow-birds joy in the storm's company. 
How the wily fox, awake before day. 
In his rocky caves mocks the bloodhound's bay, 
Till the skating school-boys from glassy pool 
Are called by the morning bell to school.) 
With my mind tuned anew to nature's thought, 

I turn to my cozy room again. 
And pore o'er my books till my task is all 
wrought, 

And stern Sir Coke smiles at Kent and Mon- 
taigne, 

And early night comes down amain 

With an uncivil frown at my civil train. 
There, don't go to sleep, but listen a minute 

(For the muse that's so hoarse now 

May sing like a linnet). 

19 



218 LETTERS TO DON BROWN. 

Yes. The work is done. We can chat and 

laugh now; 
No» don't say I'm old, that time's blanched my 

brow; 
Don't lead me back to the past so lone, 
For the heart will ache as it loiters where 

Some rosebud of bliss was wantonly strown! 
And the way seems so long where no light en- 
cheers, 
O'er what an ocean of sighs and tears. 
Though what a journey of ages of years, 
Of rough wild years — 

And o'er what mountains of hopes and fears 
Since the restless strife of life began 
Why scan? 
If the past is not fair 
Why wander there? 

If day's labors are past, 
If life's duties are done 
And their guerdon won, 

Why longer aghast? 

For night's blest hours are flying fast, fast — 
The hours so sacred to love and dreams. 

No, I'm not lone now — 
Say, dost see those bright gleams 

Of golden light o'er our mountain's brow, 

Where the " pearly gates" are opening now 

And heaven is smiling on earth below? 



DE#EMBER AT UNDERBILL. 219 

There are forms of beauty and forms of light 
That smile on our poet's soul from each cloud 

Which veils the beaming eyes of night; 
While angels crowd 

The tremulous air to whisper delight ; — 

So you see it matters not how lone 

The winds seem to moan, 

How can your poet-heart be lone! 



XIII. 



HOME. 



Not that this is an unclouded paradise of joy 
and summer do I so love it, my dear Don, more 
than all lands and places in the world. Not for its 
soft artistic beauty, for its crystal lakes and level 
flowery plains that reach boundless far away till 
lost in dreamy beauty ; no that the mountains climb 
into the very heavens; but that here I played my 
childhood hours away, do I love this old wilder- 
ness town. That here I first lived and loved; that 
here I first thought and mused and learned to 
weave the "rustic sang;" that hereby the glad rills 
and mountains and storms, I was first taught joy 
and aspiration and grandeur; that now when I am 
too old and wayworn to scarcely smile, these wild 
valleys are yet joyous with the echoes of careless 
old-time laughter, do I so love the dear old Under- 
hill! 



HOME. 



221 



Many, many years have flung their shadows 
across the earth since 

*' When that I was, and a little tiny boy, 
With hey, ho, the wind and the rain,'' 

and left this home to wander in brighter yet (to 
me) desert lands. But mountain pictures of 
storm and sun — home thoughts were ever with 
me first and last — the inspiration that cheered me 
on to live, and toil, and toil. Here is a bit from 
Sahara: 

THE r.AIN. 

I would that I might behold once again 

The glowing light of the falling rain. 

To gladden the heart of the thirsting earth. 

As it did in my youth in the land of my birth, 

When the mountain-crags braved each threatening 

cloud, 
And the rain fell 'midst flashes and* thunders loud. 

Yet never, never, never again 

May T joy in the light of the falling rain, 

And never may gladden my wistful eye 

The falling tear-drop of sympathy 

To repay my love for this parching earth — 

0! the love of that mountain-land of my birth! 

That boyhood land — I can see it now, 

And that mountain with calm and daring brow — 

Its top reaching up — Heaven's liquid light — 

Its base, the deepening shadows of night, 

As it used to be when a loved step was nigh. 

And a voice that spoke gushes of sympathy ! 



222 LETTERS TO DON BROWN. 

I have wandered far from my native glen — 
I have climbed and toiled o'er the world since then, 
And have gazed my share from the hill of fame, 
Yet my heart beats quick at the thought of on$ 

name. 
And the present pales, and my bosom swells, 
As I hear those " Remembers" and long " Fare- 
wells!*' 



You sometimes blame me for a " wilding," Don, — 
as much as I expected; hence I may as well plead 
guilty, and promise to be sober and dignified, as 
always behooveth the honorable Underhillean, for 
a moment. There, I'm sober, am I not? And you 
will also allow me to declare that you are not 
alone in feeling the truth of what you speak. Youth 
is passing — the world is all passing away. A very 
trite saying, still it often comes home to the heart 
when rhetoric fails — it is an undeniable truism. 
Life passes away and naught is left but a wild and 
dreamy memory. And memory, in threading the 
silent labyrinths of the past, generally closes upon 
our school-boy days. Our school-boy days ! How 
easy it is for the oldest and coldest of us to go back 
there. However so far removed, by time or space, 
from the scene of our childhood, it is wonderful 
to think how readily we return again — indeed with 
a thought we are there. We may flatter ourselves 
that we are very contented and happy now, but 



HOME. 



22? 



why then do our thoughts go back so gladl}', with 
such an exuberance of delight? We know we are 
richer and wiser now than then. The world is 
certainly larger and grander now. Yes, but rougher, 
and harder, and colder. The world was large and 
grand enough, it was perfect then! why should it 
be any different? To be sure it was bounded for 
the most part by the visible horizon, by the Mans- 
field on the east and wooded hills on the west, yet 
how much careless happiness was there! And 
what a variety of scene and incident, too. The 
bushy hills so thickly tenanted with squirrels and 
rabbits and partridges, the shady walks, the beau- 
tiful flowers and songsters, the sparkling trout- 
brooks, the sleigh-rides, the coasting on the glazed 
hill or the crusted snow-drifts, the ice-fields and 
fox-hunts, the sugar and honey parties, the picnics, 
the husking and paring-bee?, and a thousand scenes 
yet unnamed, though not forgotten, tend to diver- 
sify and enchant every moment of those halcyon 
days. 

And is there ever a period in the life of man 
when the soul is perfectly satisfied and at rest? J 
think I once heard you ask, "Are there not alway 
certain longings, (however dim and vague they 
may be,) premonitions or tokens of the soul's com- 
ing on destiny?" Perhaps so, quite likely, I should 
say; and yet they are usually very dim and vague, 



224 LETTERS TO DON BROWN. 

at first. Do you not well recollect often wonder- 
ing, in making your diurnal peregrinations to and 
from the school-house, why the sun should hold 
the same direction while you apparently traveled 
half-way round him in the long and weary distance 
of a mile ? And when you first heard of the South, 
what was it but a very Hades of flaming fire ! 
And the North, how icy! and you shuddered as you 
thought of those treacherous ice precipices which 
terminated the frozen earth in that direction. And 
do you remember the first time you were told of 
the God who made both heaven and earth? And 
was it all childish innocence which prompted the 
question, who made God? 

But I am getting beyond both my text and pro- 
mise. Don, there must be a cloudy fate connected 
with this correspondence, for does it not always 
rain when I write you? It is stormy and wet for 
the first time since my last date, and the air is 
completely blackened and blued with smoke. In 
such a time I always think of those exquisite lines 
of Longfellow's, — 

" The day is dark and cold and dreary, 
It rains and the winds are never weary .'*^ 



xiy. 



GLORIFICATION. 



Dear Don: — It is July again, and I was think- 
ing to-da}', as I lolled in my big arm-chair, whether 
it was not time— that is, whether it was not hot 
enough to melt this ice away between us. If so 
of course a new correspondence and friendship can 
commence forthwith, — I thought to myself — *' at 
any rate I'll try." Therefore, as the poet Rich- 
mond would have it, being located at Springfield, 
in the Bay State of good and ancient memory. 

** With pen and paper daubed with ink, 
Lo! here I sit and try to think!" 

Travelers say that the inhabitants of the torrid 
zone, though probably shorter lived, are yet much 
quicker and more passionate than the longitu- 
dinarian inspirers of frost and snow ; and conse- 
.quently must enjoy or suffer more than we. 

If this be true I believe I was made for the tor- 
rid zone; for here I do not live more than three 
jnonths in the twelve. I ruminate^ or sleep, or 



226 LETTERS TO DON BROWN. 

dream dreams but to forget them during the other 
nine cold, long or short (I don't know which) 
wintry months. And hence for our correspon- 
dence, though it were thoroughly and earnestly 
commenced, and ever so much cherished on both 
sides, yet I cannot hope it to survive the first cold 
nights of September; but I will not complain; per- 
haps I enjoy more even in this brief time than a 
common frozen year of blotted paper. 

This as a passing prefatory remark, for you well 
know I am aware that the maximum of the wit 
and feeling must ever come from the youth 
and spring, rather than from the " old forsaken 
bough where I cling." You, as I have said 
often before, are growing up to Life and Fame. 
Heaven smiles on your every effort; 'Earth claps 
her myriad hands to cheer you on, while Beauty 
decks your noble brow with flowers. But as for 
my forlorn hope, I have told you what it has been 
in the past, already; the future must be the same, 
only wintry — still more wintry. Each winter 
must grow longer and longer, each summer must 
grow shorter and shorter, till by and by, there 
shall be no more summer, but instead, an eternal 
winter round my unmourned and uncommemorated 
tomb. 

In the meantime, Don, I must assure you almost 
my sole pleasure is in writing 3'^our life, and in 



GLORIFICATION. 227 

writing to and hearing from you — and of course 
you will not demand models of composition in 
either. You must know how to pardon more and 
more faults — more and more discursive ramblings» 
childishness, prosing (and perhaps self-conceited- 
ness) as universally laid at the charge of Age. 

" Crops of all kinds are doing something" — so 
somebody says; and I endorse it with an emphasis. 
Never since the watery morning of creation have 
the steaming earth and surrounding atmosphere 
shot themselves so fast into luxuriant vegetation 
as in these last two weeks. Heat and moisture 
have been abundant, and (to be sober once) their 
combined effect has been truly wonderful. Grass 
will be heavy everywhere ; oats and wheat also, 
— Corn measures its length each day towards 
heaven, though it did feel small two weeks ago. 
Pumpkins and melons will be abundant, I think, 
from the multitude of blossoms. It rains every 
other (hour) day. Cabbages will swim — do 
not know how it is going tn be with turkeys, 
and chicken pies — have not seen any yet — but cer- 
tainly there is a most definite prospect of a glori- 
ous and most universal chowder of a thanksgiving 
next fall! No lank, blue-nosed, starving strag- 
glers, staggering along life's rugged highway then; 
no sir. If the gods permit, far from it; they shall 
rather be crammed so full they cannot stagger if 



228 LETTERS TO DON BROWN. 

they would, or in soothe navigate at all, only roll* 
So I say, and so will you when you feel yourself 
revolving. By the way, your potatoes, have they 
"swam up yet?'* That were a consumation de- 
voutly to be wished. 

And what are you doing, Don, and there has been 
a long interim in your correspondence with your 
old " wilding." Another year is well on its way 
(where?) past the earth, and my locale is no more 
Chatham or Ghent, but as I have before told you» 
Springfield, Mass. A quiet, beautiful city rising 
proudly up from the " waters of the greate streame 
of the Connecticut,'* as the ancient Puritans in their 
quaint language termed it. There are some grand 
buildings and streets, too, I should think, though I 
have not had time yet to explore. From the top of 
our castle, however, we have a good view of it as 
a whole, and thus it is truly enchanting. It is per- 
fectly embowered in maples and elms and chest- 
nuts, and is a city in a great forest. "A very fair 
place to live in," says Mr. R., and I'm sure it 
must be a fair place to die in. Indeed, it is a long 
time since I have seen so pretty a rambling place 
of hill and dell and fountain as within the gates 
of the Springfield Cemetery. Almost enough to 
make one in love with death to see its resting-place 
so sweetly decked by the hand of nature. Most 
loyely, most beautiful, most but it seems al- 



GLORIFICATION. 229 

most a sacrilege to use such trite exclamations in 
the description of so sacred a place. 

Yet how can we help being sometimes trite if we 
use the same words that all Englishmen have used 
for hundreds of years? Language must ever com- 
pare darkly with thought, as earth with heaven. — 
Everything in this sublunary world is darkly veil- 
ed; yet sometimes a genius-soul, in the unfeigned 
ecstacy of passionate pulsation, will tear away the 
clouds, and the startled w^orld, even the cold world 
of which we read, will exult as it catches a glimpse 
of the great, pure heaven beyond, where 

" The emerald fields are of dazzling glow 
And the flowers of everlasting blow."' 

July 2d. — It takes me a long time to write a bit 
of a letter, but you must know I have been very 
busy. Yes, every moment, and still am having 
glorious times down here : nothing but May days, 
and June days, and sun days, and bloom days, and 
such grand leaf days and ways, and balmy, en- 
chanting nights! 

" Come out, love, the night is enchanting, 
The moon is just over Broadway; 

The stars are all lighted and panting — 
Hot weather up there, I dare say." 

Roe. says this quotation is more Willistic than 

poetic. 

Am glad to hear that you are pursuing your 
20 



230 LETTERS TO DON BROWN. 

studies in spite of your commercial cares. Push ever 
on in your high path, for knowledge is the only true 
undying power which this proud world can boast. 
In this connection always think of that beautiful 
passage in Virgil — 

"Macte nova virtute puer; sic iter ad astra; 
Diisgenite, et geniture Deas." 

•' Go on, spotles boy, in the paths of virtue; 
It is the way to the stars.'' 

Have no news worth noting, save that the 
school is going bravely, and I write in breath- 
less haste, in race with a hurricane, and but just 
ahead of Uncle Sam's Mail, and likely to be slam 

smashed all to annihilation if I stop even to 

blow a kiss to an angel with blue eyes! And all 
Springfield are going up in a balloon July 4th, and 
I am going to cut the rope. Am now making the gas. 

July 5th I shall be sole tenant of this hedgy city. 
At five A. M,, I calculate the omnibus balloon will 
have passed beyond the earth's attraction into the 
regions of space. Came down then and we'll have 
tall times. Room enough to flourish in then. We 
can be as brave as the bravest in this gorgeous 
world. Come down ! 

But to leave figures a moment. July Fourth is 
going to make a great din and dust in this lo- 
cality. The honorable company of Rag Volun- 
teers will be out before the sun, and enchant the 



GLORIFICATION. 231 

gaping multitude with their glorious presence. 
Next will come — breakfast. Next in order, the 
floral procession, composed of sundry wonderful 
bare-footed boys and girls driven by the Aldermen 
and Council. Next, dinner. Next, an intellectual 
boat race on the Connecticut, in which the great- 
est minds of Harvard will strive (spiritually?) with 
the greatest minds of Yale. Next and last, and 
best of all, comes the climax, the balloon ascension, 
as before described. 

Truly a glorious day, as all the world of orators 
have a thousand times exclaimed. The glorious 
summer sun is intending to shine through a golden 
shower (of water) — a glorious symbol of the per- 
petuation of peace between Heaven and Earth, 
Freedom and Slavery ! This is all. Have no more 
news unless I write you a thunder shower. There 
is a smasher coming on, but it is behind time — 
can't wait. 

In haste, yours truly. 

P. S. Enclosed please find four of the most infer- 
nal tunes, all squeaked and shrieked on the same 
infernal hand-organ beneath my window. Hope the 
thunder shower will drown — the music, if it does 
not the man that grinds it! 

Don, I did not send you the above when I intend- 
ed, so now of news a bit more. We had a Fourth 
of July here, and not only that, but a celebration. 



232 LETTERS TO DON BROWN. 

In just about six words, well, — we had a double 
conglomerated flower procession, to begin with in 
the morning, made up of about a hundred thousand 
flowers, as near as I could count; the four seasons 
on wheels, and the old woman in a shoe, on wheels, 
that all the world has heard of. In the first place 
the girls were all beautiful, of course, as all girls 
are bound to be, and smiling and fragrant — es- 
pecially ihe flowers. Spring was beautiful exceed- 
ingly, being composed of a wagon, green bushes, 
and ladies and flowers; the aforesaid wagon with 
wheels had quite a platform, and there they were, 
all commingled in spring shape. Girls and ladies 
standing up in the middle, and sitting and lying 
down all around, would you believe it? — some 
were without their parasols ! 

Summer was made of the same stuff as spring, 
only more — more melting I suppose. 

Autumn had less flowers and more wheat; hav- 
ing four sheaves, I think, set up at the four corners 
of the wonderful vehicle. 

But icy winter — thctt was a new creation, and 
no mistake. That went on wheels, but the scenery 
was no longer soft looks and odoriferous blossoms. 
Don, think of sighing hemlocks as far as the eye 
can reach, all loaded down with cotton wool snow*, 
and only three or four little darling maidens shiv- 
ering beneath — wouldn't that be cold! 



GLORIFICATION. 



233 



Nothing more till 8 P. M., so went home and 
read " Undine '' till it was time for the balloon as- 
cension. Arrived at Government Square, and what 
a rush there had been among the masses. I should 
think there were twenty thousand people present. 
Could all these have gone up it would have been 
worth the while, but to spend so much gas upon 
one mortal, it hardly pays. Hovvsomever, I stud- 
ied the whole affair, and can tell any anxious in- 
quirer all particulars — both as to how this won- 
derful machine was made, and who made it, 
and what he made it of, and who wanted to go up 
with it, and who didn't — and finally how Monsieur 
Frenchman did go through a cloud in five min- 
utes, and landed a white -cat parachute safely at 
Chicopee. 

Suppose I could tell you how the Yale boys 
raced down the river; likewise how we had a 
brilliant display of fireworks in the evening, and how 

Geneve and I, 

And Minnie and I, 

And Milly and I, 

And Janie and I • 

Sat on the tin roof of our tower. 
And looked an hour at the fiery shower! 

But perhaps that would be too dazzling a sub- 
ject to dilate upon, so I will close with, good- 



night ! 



Yours truly, Gay. 



XV, 



BOAT-RACING. 



Springfield^ July '23d, 1855, 

Dear Don : — All very well ; we have had a boat 
race. The high-minded, chivalrous students of 
that very famous institution yclept Yale, of saintly 
memory, did challenge the goodly literary knights 
of that most famous Harvard, and they did " meete 
within the precincts of our streame,'' known as 
the Connecticut, at half-past four of the clock, and 
did there try their learned skill. 

And it Wds good for them to come here, forsooth 
that our thousands of wonderless burghers might 
on(ie more have cause to wonder; likewise that 
their bursting aldermanic purses might once more 
be relieved ere Mammon, with his rust-proof keys, 
had made them irrevocably his own. 

Thousands trailed down State street — lawyers 
and ladies and loafers; and each one read this pla- 
card, " Extra Republican at six.'' Thousands 



BOAT-RACING. ^35 

went down the river bank, and elbowed each other 
into the mud for half an hour before the race com- 
menced, by way of rivalry. The four boats, two 
from Yale and two from Harvard, finally ranged 
alongside each other, and thousands cheered the vic- 
tor crew, (Yale), as they started, and in a few min- 
utes thousands again cheered the victor crew as 
they came back — but this time it was not Yale. 
No, for they were beaten, vanquished, unknighted 
forever — only the Republican says the clouds did 
weep for them "tears of sympathy." It makes me 
think of the commencement of that letter Geneve 
wrote to you not very long ago. Do you recollect 
it? 

My dearest Don — This evening all alone, 
And musing here within her little room, 
What better can your Geneve do than own 
Response to your request " to please write soon;'' 

'Tis very dark and still — still shadows loom 
Like spirits o'er each tree that dots the plain, 
While down upon the roof weeps the slow falling 
rain. 

Most wonderful, or as Carlyle would have said, 
notablest thing of the age. Fifteen hundred Re- 
publicans before eight — many friends of the racers 
present — immense interest — yet after all what of 
it? Is any great genius demanded or shown forth 
in a racer? Have not the wild savages — do they 
not now with their rough bark canoes shame even 



236 LETTERS TO DON BROWN. 

these Harvard victors every day (on a thousand 
rivers), without an effort? Do not the very brutes 
show more dexterity and tact than these same 
about-to-be A. B. gentlemen? 

I know that the most cultivated nation of anti- 
quity were fond of races. The competitors in the 
classic races were made up of the bravest and best 
of a heroic nobility. They were Pagans, and these 
games were a part of their religion, hence their 
earnestness. They knew how to die but not to be 
vanquished. They "toiled even to death,'' not for 
some silly baubles of reward, but fame — a simple 
la\irel wreath was all they coveted. And after 
each victor athlete had received this fitting symbol 
of the propitious favor of the gods and men, then 
came the crowning scene of all; the divine poets 
were heard. Mind was arrayed against mind, gen- 
ius against genius, and listening nations were to 
judge between them. Many years, hundreds, thou- 
sands of years, have gone since then, and we say 
the world is lighter in this 19Lh century than when, 
Homer sang to the enthusiastic Greeks, yet where 
are our Literary Contests? We have plenty of the 
animal, physical, (such as it is), but where is our 
poetical emulation? Most assuredly it is not ex- 
pressed in boat-racing. 

So much for this — I hated the race, and hate this 
scrawl about it. Ditto, don't I hate that eternal 



BOAT-RACING. 237 

circle of monotony called thrilling works of fiction, 
precisely stretched out to three hundred pages, and 
always ending with three, four, or five marriages 
and an exclamation point ! — as though that were 
the crowning act of existence — ^the closing up of 
romance or interest in life, and finally declaring as 
much as that love instead of growing higher and 
holier (as it should), must fade away to nothing- 
ness — with marriage. 

Don, if you are ever sick of the roughness and 
wildness of your home scenery, the bold, heaven^ 
defying crags of the Granite State that are yet un- 
softened and untamed by all the toiling, broiling 
centuries, come to Springfield. 

Springfield, famous for steam-whistles, lawyers 
and hedges, dandies and pocket pistols, 

A noble town for men, or noble waters, 

Or noble trees o'erspreadiiig green and grand, 

Or noble lovely flowers, or lovely daughters, 

The loveliest of the great, the gayest of beau 
monde. 

But if your home-sickness is of a different kind, 
so that an unbrowsed Eden of Beauty could not be 
appreciated or enjoyed, and you feel like jumping, 
as Sam Patch did, 

*' This and the world to come]'' 

go to Niagara, 



238 LETTERS TO DON BROWN, 

Are you sick of the scenes of earth, 

Are you sick of the lives of men? 
Would you rather look on the blank of death 

Than on their discord again? 
I would lead you to where Niagara roars, 

And a fiddler plies his trade. 
And a heaven of rainbow beauty smiles down 

On the music the fiddler has made. 
Are you sick of the follies and fashions of life. 

Of lying smiles and words ? 
Just listen to mighty Niagara's voice 

And the fiddler's notes — like a bird's ; 
And the fiddler plays as Time dances by 

To the chorus of rushing waves ; 
For they say that the current, since Time could 

fly. 

Never so madly raves ; 
And while the stream wrecks the tune, the man, 

the world. 
They are both from their lofty pinnacle hurled 
Down to the lower, bottomless world! 



XYI. 



MINERALS AND ANGELS. 

Chester Factories, Mass., jSug 22, 1855. 

Dear Don: — You had better believe this is a 
tall place. Everything is tall; the mountains are 
tall, the rocks are tall, the hills are tall, the folks 
and valleys are tall and — narrow. As a general 
thing they — that is, the valleys — are only just wide 
enough for the streams to crowd themselves 
through between them and the moon; but by some 
freak or other, the branch from the Berkshire 
mountains here makes a turn and leaves a level 
plat large enough for a depot; so, of course, here 
is a village located. But very soon the world 
shoots up again into tree-covered hills and perpen- 
dicular, everlasting rocks. Tell you what, this 
looks like a damp place for a flood; for the hills 
appear water-tight all around as far as the eye can 
reach, clear up against the middle of the sky. Yet 
the cars shoot through here, Albany and Boston, 
Boston and Albany, many times a day. In shortj. 



240 LETTERS TO DON BROWN. 

Don, there is one place in the world in which you 
may feel yourself clear out of the world, and yet 
know, at the same time, that you are on the road 
that all the world travels. 

Rusticated, yesterday, up the railroad, through 
the rocks and over thirteen stone bridges to Mid- 
dlefield, with a mineralogist I Now I admired the 
rocks and the wilderness, the blackberries and the 
garnets; but to wait to smash them all to annihi- 
lation with a paltry stone hammer — oh, infandum! 
He is gone (his morning alone, and I am on the 
shady side of a depot writing (hieroglyphics) and 
listening to the music of a hand-organ and a horse 
saw-mill. 

Yesterday was quite a day for all mineralogy. — 
For all mineralogy, the heart of my rock-breaking 
hero was not all mineral, as I gladly perceived; it 
began to wax faint about night-fall, and he was 
fain to give up his Herculean labors for a bowl of 
Middlefield bread and milk. That is a great place 
—by the way — Middlefield of all the fields in our 
dear Yankee State. It has a switch and a depot 
seven/ by nine (feet, not inches,) and a grocery 
post-office, wholesale and retail! Three shovels, 
four baby dresses, one bottle of pepper sauce, two 
and one-half pipes, beer at two cents a glass, fifty 
thousand acres of brush-rocks, and a little soap- 
stone. 



MINERALS AND ANGELS. 241 

0, Rome, and Virgil, Berkshire and Bryant! — 
This is a classic region, and cool, and pure. They 
have had frosts up here even now. Heigho ! I am 
going home — the mountain air has braced me 
enough. 

Aug. 24:th. — Soho, going home ! Reckon, though, 
I shall have time for meditations, if I wait for my 
mineral chum. Let me see. A restless, caged 
New York bucra advertises in this way; — "Who, 
then, in the country, has good bread and hard beds 
to sell? Who has good air, good milk, good beets 
and carrots, good greens a-growing?'' 

All very good. Now, as for the answer, I will 
say, being an unencumbered specimen of the genus 
homo, .1 have not and (thanks to my cross- eyed 
fortune) am not like to have; but I know who has. 
This is just the place; the greens all a-growing 
on forty thousand mountains, and they are not the 
kind " what wilts '' in the first sun or frost, either 
— they are evergreens. 

Not an unbrowsed Eden with a railroad running 
through it, — we do not have Edens now-a-days, — 
but the nearest to it of anything I have found in 
all my peregrinations ; that is, with accommodations. 
A middle-aged man, with large blue eyes has a 
small farm and a smaller log-patched house, on the 
romantic Housatonic; a charming, bright-eyed, 
motherly gem of a wife, and some Becket bread 
21 



242 LETTERS TO DON BROWN. 

and milk, all within reach of that beautiful, hedgy 
city Springfield, Massachusetts. I admit I am in 
love with the place so far; perhaps others would 
be! As yet I have not even asked the log-pro- 
prietor whether he would keep me or anybody 
else; but if I do stop here, for the sake of home 
and humanity, I hope somebody will condescend to 
accompany me. Don't laugh now — don't deny it, 
sir — I am a poet and love solitude as is a poet's 
bouiiden duty, only I want about a dozen bright 
eyes around me to make me feel it! 

The sun is up ever so far, clear above the rocks. 
If my mineral chum does not make his appearance 
soon . 

If there were only a few more acres of land this 
would be a good place to write pastorals — bucolics. 
No, let me see; these evergreen crags very much 
resemble the eyries of the old Scandinavian sea- 
kings; I can imagine the ocean around them, and 
everything else. Very well, he may pound stone; 
1 will meditate and blot paper, and see which will 
have the best dinner. Pound away, my good sir! 

Well, now I have a hundred lines written, each 
one of which glows like a Middlefield garnet. An 
ambitious piece — have a good mind to sign it Molly 
(how the sun burns my face!) or Minnie Minx, and 
have it printed ! What can the matter be ? — it is 



MINERALS AND ANGELS. 243 

afternoon, and the hero of the hammer has not yet 
returned. Perhaps he is petrified! 

But the depot dinner is ready, and three car- 
loads have come out 'from Albany to dine with me 
— would you believe it? We have blackberries and 
milk, and lasses to serve them. But here is a 
letter from a young friend I had thought either 
married or frozen to death in the mountains of 
Vermont. Adieu, blackberries and lasses. He is 
my pet, my young friend, and WTites very well, I 
think. I will show you a part of his letter. 

'* Dear Gay: — I wish I had a Byronic pen, or 
only a spark of that entrancing fire that glows in 
the ever to be read " Gurnal," of Sir Walter; then 
perchance might I tell you what a pleasing ride we 
had upon the bonny waters of our Champlain. I 
would tell you of the bright faces I there met, and 
the romance necessarily connected with a boat 
ride. 

" You know I always had a fondness for jovial 
companions and a rocking boat. Well, go to, then; 
imagine me en route Tor Colchester in our family 
carriage, — an easy vehicle, — top down, of course, 
and self sitting comfortably and easy, satisfjing a 
most wonderful curiosity, and taking into view 
the far-off hills of the Empire State, as well as our 
own stumps and Green Mountains rising in such 



244 LETTERS TO DON BROWN. 

sublimity and beauty ! Essex passed and Col- 
chester drawing near with every revolution of the 
wheels. 

Wait a moment! do you see through that locust- 
grove a large brick building with a balcony in 
front, and through that half-closed blind a face 
peering out? See! she lays aside the book which 
she is reading, and now has disappeared. Now go 
along, Dolly, for yonder barn awaits thee, and a 
dish of those long oats, Doll, which you know 

you've tasted; you shall have but that robin 

perched upon a locust sprig seems to sing a little 
plaintive, and the cat under the fence seems to 
tread as if some evil had befallen the family, or it 
might waken some sleeping invalid. Hark! Do 
you hear those soft footsteps upon the stairs? they 
come, and — and — a little hand reaches out for 
mine, and an eye kindling with kindly sympathy 
greets me, and 

" Come, Dolly, you have two instead of one, 
now, but the road is good, and the oats, Doll. 

"And now do you see that couple? We will 
follow them for they seem to be going to the bay. 
But what makes them talk so loud? 'Julian, I 
have not heard from you this long, long time — 
have written but have received no answer; I fear 
you did not receive my letter.' 



MINERALS AND ANGELS. 245 

** Look, he blushes; but finally he answers and 
says something about hard study, very busy: now 
they have entered a boat. 

'* Guess the rest, only be sure and guess we had 
a fine time; went away round the cliffs and far out 
upon the broad lake, and then came to a wild pro- 
montory and landed, took a walk among the trees 
and flowers, and what a long, good talk we had; 
and then the ride home. 0, I have dreamed of it 
and will dream of it again. 

*' I thought last night that a little child came to 
me, and climbed up into my lap, and put her arms 
around my neck, and kissed me. She was a sweet 
angel of a child, but when she had kissed me she 
w^as gone, and I waked with such a feeling of 
utter loneliness as I have never before known in 
my life!" 

But I must not wait longer, the bell is ringing, 
my scientific friend has come with his pocket lite- 
rally fuU of rocks, and so here is a health to you, 
Don, and a good-bye to Chester Factories forever. 



XVII. 



WATER-MELONS AND BURNS. 



Dear Sir ; — Why don't you write, you gen- 
tleman, sir. Well, sir, you bid fair to get your 
pay for this. I have here a lot of waste paper, 
(such as Turner wrote his immortal works on), 
which is good for nothing, and therefore I will send 
it to you. Exciting times down here, sir, (you see 
I am laconic, business men are always laconic,) bu- 
siness times. Cold weather and Camp-meetings. 
We have a social tea-party at Hampden Hall to- 
night, to save printing the Daily Republican 
to-morrow morning, because the Editors want to go 
to the W^orcester convention to-morrow, you know, 
to fuse Also a Methodist, Sabbath-School, frozen 
picnic to-day. They made a great parade on the 
pave of Main street — drumming and squeaking and 
freezing along, in good Amazonic order, but I should 
hate to freeze to death, pic-nic-ing. 



WATER-MELONS AND BURNS. 247 

It is night now, cold and clear. How the stars 
glow with awakened winter lustre. We shall have 
a frost for the first time on the Connecticut, yet a 
round one for all that- By the way, the evenings 
are getting long in this region. How is it with 
you.^ Do you have paring bees, and pumpkin bees, 
and huskings as we used to do ? They do not here, 
" don't mention them,'' but they have watermelon 
bees, (parties), which are superb. 

N. P. Willis says it is fine to burn stumps in the 
night, therefore I suppose it is. For some reason 
or other, light, like some men, makes a good deal 
the best appearance in the dark. We had to go a 
mile up Long Hill before we reached the long- wished 
for plantation. Thanks! for the sight was as good 
as a baby show by Barnum. We were perfectly 
paid for our labor by the splendid appearance of 
those lights. They were ranged around for a con- 
siderable distance in the fields, either attached to 
posts, or swung from twigs of bushes on a table- 
topped promoulary, overlooking the river, in the 

pasture of Mr, , and there rough tables were 

fixed and seats scattered. We were perfectly de- 
lighted, how fine — brilliant — glorious — those lights 
— worth twenty times our 

We went along — they were nothing but old rusty 
lanterns. 

They had a swing out under the hickory trees, 



248 LETTERS TO DON BROWN. 

and the gentlemen swung the ladies; and the boys 
ran down the bank, and the girls ran down the 
bank. It was very fine without the water melons, 
so I escaped. Good ni . 

Here, dear Don, I fell sound asleep — frost must 
have a soporific effect on a philosopher writing in 
dignitate. But it makes little differtnce, only I have 
to date this thing over again. You may call this 
a 1 tter if you please, Don, but it is not; more like 
an essay, or rather an untamed journal. 

So fiiial'y your letter did arrive, and Uncle Sara 
did bring it afrer all, heavy as it was. Your 
teacher. Mulligan — I am vexed and troubled that 
you should be thus situated; you had better have 
no teacher. I am old enougli and fojiy enough and 
^oggy enough, but such a narrowed down, siiarp- 
ened-up old fog> ! He ought to know more by intu- 
ition, even if he had never breathed our crystal 
ether and drank in our glorious heaven-born sun- 
light, than to say that more than three poets never 
had and never could exist. Ant will he dare say 
this in face of all the cumulative evidence of ages 
to the contrary? Will he dare say in considera- 
tion of one even — our poet, the world's poet, 
Burns! That since the earth has been wandering 
in the illimitable heavens — -since the morning stars 
sang together, and the sons of God shouted for joy 
— since angels have winged their glad -course in 



WATER-MELONS AND BURNS. 249 

smiles through the crystal ether and men dwelt 
beneath, not more than three original poets have 
been! and these were Homer, Virgil and Milton. 

Bravo, Mr. Mulligan, only with this passing re- 
mark, that the imperial Virgil copied Homer, and 
the Godlike Milton, both; and even Homer himself 
but improved upon the numerous works of his pre- 
decessors. And, allowing this, that the aforesaid 
names belong to the race divine, how does it affect 
their brothers! How does it affect our poet, Robert 
Burns ? His name and fame are fixed. They are 
placed as far " ayont the sky, ayont the moon'' 
as will never be brought down low by mortal man. 
The reason is plain — he was of us. He has en- 
gaged the sympathy of the world — he lived with 
us, not above us, nor below us. He sang "a 
man's a man for a' that." A poor plough-boy 
himself, he sang the truth as it came to his mind, 
not softened by sighing tones and languishing per- 
fumes, but in his native tongue and with his native 
Scottish fire. 

Some may wish he had been different — wiser or 
richer, or that his life had been calmer and hap- 
pier; but we will take him as he was, whistling at 
his plough, wiling the toilsome hours away in care- 
less song, or roving o'er Scotland's hills and vales 
in search of " Patreich's Glen," o'er Scotia's banks 
and braes, his ever cherished home. Take him as 



250 LETTERS TO DON BROWN. 

he was, the rough-clad plough-boy, or the tireless 
scholar at school, or when the labors of the day- 
were over, the musing wight poring over Pope's 
poetic works, or the Spectator by the flickering 
firelight in the " chimney neuk of ease" — one of 
the million; and then consider whether he could 
have better been the immortal benefactor to liter- 
ature and the world as Burns himself, or as a supe- 
rior God or angel — Milton — looking doM^n from 
high Olympus; whether the mad turmoil which 
made up his life was not exactly fitted for his ever 
increasing career of greatness — the bringing out 
his noble thoughts in words for all the boundless 
future ! 

Some would condemn him to oblivion because of 
the irregularity of his life; still, perhaps his great- 
est irregularities were not so great sins as your 
smallest. The sin depends not so much on the ac- 
tion, as on the motive of the action, and the 
temptation. One with the sanguine, passionate 
temperament of Burns, has stronger temptations 
in each passing day. perhaps, than you in all your 
life. And not alone this, he has higher aspirations 
for good, also; he feels more either of pain or 
pleasure; he enjoys more real pleasure in one flit- 
ting moment than the sleepy lymphatic could in 
ages. 

Burns was passionate; and if poetry is the 



WATER-MELONS AND BURNS. 251 

touching language of the soul, the heart, arranged 
and refined by an exquisite perception of what is 
beauty, and harmony, and music, then perchance 
he was a poet. 

7'ake him as he was, struggling year after year, 
without property, almost without friends; and 
then the Burns he is, the Burns of fame, and is he 
not a mentor for the aspiring, struggling youth of 
every land and nation ? And is it not exemplified 
in him as in the lives of great men all, that great- 
ness without adverse circumstances is impossible — 
is like flowers and fertile fields without the invig- 
orating storms and showers? 

And he was a poet — of God. He has spoken to 
his young friend Andrew, as none other than a 
poet, and God's poet could speak. And to the reck- 
less ambitious he speg-ks a warning voice in notes 
that charm while they thrill with truth. 

" As thy day grows warm and high, 
Life's meridian flaming nigh, 
Dost thou spurn the humble vale ? 
Life's proud summit wouldst thou scale? 
Check thy climbing step elate, 
Evils lurk in felon wait ! 
Dangers, eagle pinioned, bold. 
Soar around each cliffy hold, 
While cheerful peace with linnet song 
Chants the lowly dells among.'' 



252 LETTERS TO DON BROWN. 

And " know prudent, cautious, self-control is 
virtue's root;'' but one might quote a book of his 
works. They are full of enthusiasm, and if we 
might believe there was indeed a fourth poet, we 
would say, poetry. 

However this may be, certain it is that he lived 
and sung, not to the mercenary adoration of some 
proud old pampered tyrant, but to the people, to 
his brothers: and while the people are more nu- 
merous than kings, he, Robert Burns, who echoed 
Coila's truest muse, shall be remembered, admired 
and LOVED. 



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